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THE JOURNEY OF THE SOUL
Jain Education International
of karma. The soul gets caught in the wheel of samsara and forgets its real nature. The first three types of passions obscure the effort for the search for truth (samyaktva), capacity for partial renunciation, (deśavirata caritra), and the capacity for the full realization of the self. The effort for the search for truth is thwarted and the effort takes the direction of untruth. Still, the desire and the capacity to ascertain the truth about the things of the world, remains unobscured. This is explained on the analogy of the clouds. The pure and perfect knowledge is still possible, although it is covered by mithyatva. The attainment of samyaktva is a necessary condition of the way to the realization of the self. By the destruction and subsidence of the veil of karma which obscures the knowledge and activity of the soul, the soul attains samyaktva and knows its real nature. It is reminded of the great mission it has to realize. is aroused to active spiritual exertion. It is awakened from nescient slumber, and its inherent capacity for self-realization gets expression. It now knows that it has to escape from the wheel of samsara to get to the realization of itself. This is the awakening of the soul. Sometimes the awakening comes through the instruction of those who have realized the truth. But sometimes it is aroused by its own efforts without any outside help. Jainism does not believe in the revelation of truth like the Vedanta and the Mīmāmsā schools, nor does it accept the Yoga and Nyāya Vaiseṣika view that the supreme deity reveals the truth. The Jainas believe that the soul has an inherent capacity for self-realization.
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But self-realization is a long process. It is an arduous and difficult path. It is a fact of common experience that different individuals have different degrees of power to realize the stage of perfection. In the course of its eternal wandering in various forms of existence, the soul sometimes gets an indistinct vision and feels an impulse to realize it. This is due to the centrifugal force. Such an awakening does not always lead to enlightenment and spiritual progress. The soul has to go through various stages of spiritual ups and downs before the final goal is reached. These stages of spiritual development are by the Jainas called guṇasthanas. They believe that there are fourteen such stages of spiritual development. These stages are linked up with the stages of the subsidence and destruction of the karmic veil. In its journey to perfection, the soul passes through an infinite number of states, going from the lowest to the highest stages of spiritual development..
We shall now consider the journey of the soul through the fourteen stages of spiritual development as the Jainas describe them. Gunasthana refers to the state of the soul at a particular stage in its spiritual development with reference to the nature of jñāna, darśana, and caritra, through the operation, subsidence and destruction of karma.5
5 Abhidhanarajendra, Vol. III, Gunasthāna,
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