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THE JOURNEY OF THE SOUL
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of deluding karmas, and the soul goes from the tenth stage of upaśānta kaşāya to the twelfth stage, in which the passions are altogether destroyed. The twelfth stage is called kşīņa moha, or ksīna kaşāya. This is the highest stage of annihilation of the karmas, while in the eleventh stage we reach the highest stage of suppression of the karmas. This is upaśānta moha. The soul remains in this stage for one antarmuhūrta. During this time, it is very much purified and destroys the karmas obscuring jñāna and darśana and also the deluding karmas. The soul is now free from all the four types of ghāti karmas. All the passions disappear altogether.
(13) When all the passions and the four types of ghāti karmas are destroyed, one reaches the thirteenth stage of spiritual development. In this stage, one is nearer the absolute perfection only with some impediments in the way. This stage is called sayoga kevali. The conditions of bondage like mithyātva, pramāda, and passions are no longer operative. One is free from such bondage. However, the other condition, viz., the bondage of activity, still remains. It is not free from empirical activity and intrest. It is not free from yoga; therefore, it is called sayoga; but it has attained omniscience in the form of perfect knowledge and perfect intuition. The soul has become kevali. Therefore, this stage is called sayoga kevali. But one is still not free from embodied existence, because the four types of non-obscuring karmas, like the vedaniya which produces feeling, āyu which determines the span of life, nāma which determines the physical structure and nature of the body, and gotra which determines one's individual status in life, are still operative. One is not free from bodily existence, because the āyu karma is still to be exhausted. Persons still go through the threefold activities of body, speech and mind. But there is no influx of the karma. In this stage, we find omniscient beings like the tirthankaras, the ganadharas and the sāmānya kevalins. They attain the enlightenment, but still live in this world, preaching the truth that they have seen.
This stage can be compared to the stage of jīvanmukti described by the other orthodox systems of Indian thought. Vedānta recognizes the state of jivanmukti. Vedāntasāra describes this as the stage of the enlightened and liberated man yet alive. He is in the perfect state of deliverance. He may appear to be active in this world in many ways; yet at root, he is inactive. He is like the man assisting a magician in a magical show, knowing that all that is shown is merely an illusion of the senses. He is unaffected by all that happens.25 Yet, the prārabdha karma of the individual destiny, which is responsible for what is, cannot be destroyed even at this stage. It has to exhaust itself, as these karmas produce their effects of continued life. But not being replenished, they will
25 Vedāntasära, 219.
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