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CHAPTER VIII
165
nal object that is the cause of bondage. It is by thought that bondage is caused.
COMMENTARY
"The direct cause of bondage is thought and not any external object, though this is the cause of thought itself. Then why should external object be tabooed? It is for the purpose of condemning the thought based upon the external objects. Thought without the basis of an external object never occurs in the consciousness of Self. If it is possible to have thought without the basis of an external object, then thought corresponding to non-existing object must also appear. In the case of a person born of a real mother, you can entertain the thought, "I am going to kill her son". But in the case of a barren woman, the thought, "I am going to kill her son", would be meaningless because there can be no son born to a barren woman. Hence it is certain that there can be no thought without a basis in reality. Hence it necessarily follows that condemnation of evil thoughts leads to the condemnation of corresponding objects of reality. For it is only by preventing the cause that the effect can be prevented from occurring. Could it not be maintained that. because the external object is the cause of that cause which produces bondage, therefore, the external object is itself the cause of bondage? No. Fox, the real causal condition of bondage, the conative idea is lacking. If the external object were by itself capable of producing karmic bondage, then it would have identical effect in the case of a saint who moves about with gentleneess and caution actuated by the ideal of love and mercy and of a hypocrite in the garb of a saint who roams about rough and tough without any care. That is, both of them must have the same reaction in the environment which is common to both. It is not so as a matter of fact. The saint pure in heart is untouched by sin though he lives in the same environment as the false and hypocritical ascetic who, because of the absence of the purity of thought, is still attached to sensual pleasures and is thus subject to karmic bondage. Hence it is not the environmental object but it is the inner thought that is the cause of bondage.
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