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THE SCIENTIFIC FOUNDATIONS OF JAINISM
Austerity
Fig. 7.1. Karmic force shield (circle) and karmic emission (less diagonal lines)
through austerity. according to your capacity” (Appendix 3B, q. 7.1), which means that one should not practise austerities to the extent of harming oneself by trying to go beyond one's capabilities. It should never be confused with masochism.
7.2 PURIFICATION AXIS & FOURTEEN
PURIFICATION STAGES
We have already introduced the life axis in Chapter 3. Now we come to the upper portion relevant to human beings who are already spiritually higher than other life forms. The purification axis plots the human beings from those with low life units to those with very high life units , i.e. with maximum karmic density to those who have the lowest karmic density. In other words, it is the upper part of the life-axis which has been extended. This is described as the ladder one must climb as one progresses from heavy karmic density to a very low quantity of karmic matter and eventually to liberation.
This ladder has fourteen rungs which are stages of spiritual purification. We will call these the "fourteen purification stages". The higher one is on the ladder, the higher is the degree of purification (or Jainness) and the lesser is the karmic matter. Figure 7.2 shows the purification axis with the names of the stages.
The zero stage is for the animal/ vegetable kingdom. The first point shown on the axis is the first rung applicable to human beings and it
re that the karmic matter is at its densest for human beings. The karmic matter decreases up the ladder and is zero at the 14th rung. Thus inversely, we could view the purification axis as through the karmic density axis with fourteen important points on it-the karmic density axis being continuous.
To understand the dynamic process of karmic fission, it should be clearly understood that as karmons are shed, there is an increase in the energy of the soul which allows further spiritual growth. It is assumed that future karmic influx will be checked, and there will be a
