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CHAPTER VIII
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what is called pavitra-ahara or pure food is fit to be eaten by them. But in the matter of preparing food there are various possibilities of defects occuring therein. The articles used may be defective and may vitiate the quality of food prepared thereform. The necessary things used for preparing food such as water, fire, etc., because of careless selection may also vitiate the food prepared. Whether the preparation is made by yourself or by a cook under your instructions, the defects which may be present in the food prepared and which make it unfit for consumption are all defects of matterial articles utilised in the preparation of food. The articles used for the preparation together with the person engaged in cooking are all external condition to you. Food prepared forms the effect of all these external causal conditions and this is also external, --the whole process of causal condition resulting in the form of effect. The prepared food is completely external to the person who is going to consume the food. He is not concerned in the series of operating causes and the resulting effect. Therefore he is neither concerned in the production of the defects present in the food nor is he responsible for the same. They all pertain to material inanimate objects in the external world. But if he accepts that food which is defective and unfit for consumption with the full knowledge of the fact that defective articles were used and there was carelessness in preparation thereof, he becomes responsible for those defects, and he is therefore subject to demerit thereof. But if he rejects that food, he is not responsible for the defect and therefore he will remain uninfluenced by the demerits thereof. This illustration is quite parallel to the previous case where the material karmic conditions produce corresponding psychic states of an impure nature. These impure psychic states, since they are produced by material karmic conditions which are different in nature from the Self and also external to it, both the cause and effect remain external and alien to the Self. Therfore the pure Self is not directly concerned in this causal series and hence is not responsible for the defects and impurities present in the result. He can maintain this unconcernedness and indifference only by the practice of pratikramana and pratyakhyāna, disowning the past
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