Soul Science Part 01

Author(s): Parasmal Agrawal
Publisher: Kundakunda Gyanpith

Page 64

Pre-view (Purva Ranga)
Ācārya Kundakunda applies the analogy of king to the soul in stanza 18. Here he explains that one who is desirous of attaining the liberation should first know the soul. When one is convinced that the soul exists, when one knows the unchangeable soul, and knows that such a soul is me (self) then such a knowing leads to right belief (SamyakDarśana). With right belief the spiritual knowledge becomes the right knowledge (Samyakjñāna). After such beliuf and knoweldge the devotion to the soul or staying or immersing in the soul can be possible and it is called right conduct (SamyakCāritra).
Gāthā 18 elaborates stanza 16 where it has been stated that from the real point of view, the three-gems (SamyakDarsana, SamyakJñāna, and SamyakCāritra) are nothing but the soul. This stanza also motivates one to achieve these three-gems to attain liberation.
Question: The soul itself is the knower. Then why should one
make efforts to know the knower?
Answer: No doubt every soul has an attribute of knowing.
Everybody (whether a baby or an ignorant person or a scholar) experiences the manifestations of the soul in the form of knowing, secing, feeling easy and uneasy, etc. But the difficult part in this process is to identify the knower. A soul knows mind, body, emotions, pleasure and pains, etc. We experience the changing pattern of all things, thoughts, and emotions. Beyond all these, there is a changeless knower. When we focus on the changes then we miss the changeless. One is required to make efforts to comprehend this eternal and changeless soul within all of us.
In the next stanza, Ācārya Kundakunda describes a bottleneck in achieving such a realization of the soul. The knowledge of such a bottleneck would be helpful in making efforts in the right direction.
कम्मे णोकम्मम्हि य अहमिदि अहकं च कम्म णोकम्म। जा एसा खलु बुद्धी अप्पडिबुद्धो हवदि ताव।।19।।