Sambodhi 2004 Vol 27

Author(s): J B Shah, N M Kansara
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 62

56
DS BAYA 'ŚREYAS'
SAMBODHI
All our Prophet-propounders or Tirthankaras (ford-makers) were such seers. Bhagvān Mahāvīra was the last of twenty-four such seers in our times. He said that in our embodied existences all our physical vocal and mental acitivities (Yoga) produce vibrations in the environment and attract fine karma-particles (karma pudgala paramāņu) towards our soul-fields but they do not stick to our souls in the absence of passions like the dry sand would not stick to a smooth wall. Thus, dispassionate action binds no karma. The state of dispassion can be achieved by having right-vision, right knowledge and, thereby, doing right things. Right-vision can be gained by overcoming delusion, which is wrought by attachment and aversion. Attachment and aversion are the direct outcomes of our lust for physical pleasure by any fair or foul means. This physicality is at the base of this pyramid that culminates in passions. This will be clear from the following illustrations :
PASSIONS
FALSEHOOD
DELUSION
Jainism believes that the soul is an independent entity responsible for its actions, performed through the medium of the body that envelops it as long as it stays in its worldly corporeal existence, and their inevitable retribution - good or bad, pleasurable or painful - in accordance with the quality of its actions. The 'Jaina Doctrine of Karma", developed on the basis of our Prophet's teachings, says, "everyone receives the
ATTACHMENT
AVERSION
LUST FOR PHYSICAL PLEASURES
The Pyramid Of Passions
inevitable retributions of one's own actions; in painful and pleasurable experiences the others are only agencies and not the principal causes”.”