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Samayasāra
Chapter - 9
This perversion which is the root of all evils is that the Self does not distinguish itself from the material body which envelops it, and therefore, develops an inordinate love for what is pleasant and useful to the body and hatred for what is thought to be harmful and unpleasant. The embodied existence necessarily generates a powerful possessive impulse and compels the soul to acquire the pleasant and useful things of the world. In empirical terms, the delusion forces the soul to go towards the darkness instead of enlightenment, to foster ignorance or perverted knowledge instead of truth, and the cycle of rebirths lasts as long as the delusion lasts. The common aim of all the Indian philosophical systems being realization of the pure self, they show the means of eradicating the delusion and perverted belief. In order to do this, the basic requirement is to possess the spiritual conviction regarding its pure state. Once the soul is convinced about and firmly believes in the real nature of the self, it turns back and treads upon the right path.
3. Pure and Perfect Self: Inspite of the above mentioned unanimity/agreement, there are radical differences in the soul's conceptions of the different philosophies. Consequently, there are corresponding differences in the expositions of the process of liberation from the worldly state (bondage), as well as the ultimate nature of the pure and perfect self. The most significant difference is between the absolutist philosophies-Vedānta, Sāmkhya etc. and the non-absolutist Jains. The former may, again be divided into two groups (i) Monists who stress upon the unity of the reality and hold the aspect of plurality as illusory, that is holding a single immutable and eternal unitary principle called Brahma,as the substratum ground of all other conscious egos and (ii) Pluralists who hold the multiplicity of conscious egos as the primary fact and accept the existence of infinite number of ubiquitous, eternal and immutable conscious principles, called purușas, side by side with an unconscious everevolving substance called prakṛti. On the other side are non-absolutist Jains who believe in infinite number of conscious principles called jīvas side by side with unconscious karmic matter. Both jīva and matter are mutable. Worldly state of existence (bondage) is intimate association of soul with matter, while the liberated state is the pure consciousness (jīva) which is free from all associations with matter. Each jīva is numerically
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