Spiritual Awakening and other Essays

Author(s): Kamalchand Sogani
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

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poisons all our activities so as to check the realization of the Summum Bonum of life. Moreover, it is responsible for the perversity of knowledge and conduct alike. The whole outlook, knowledge and conduct are vitiated by its operations. So long as Mithyādarśana (spiritual perversion) is operative, all our efforts to witness the sun of self's glory are bound to fail. It is to be rooted out in the interest of rendering its unwholesome functions null and void. In other words, Samyagdarśana (spiritual awakening) is to be attained, which in turn will make knowledge and conduct conducive to the attainment of liberation.
It is only after the acquisition of Samyaktva (spiritual awakening) that the soul attains the primary qualification even for marching towards emancipation from the wheel of misery. If Mithyātva (spiritual perversion) is at the root of Samsāra (transmigration), Samyaktva (spiritual awakening) is at the root of Moksa (liberation). It is the beginning of the spiritual pilgrimage, and the foundation of the magnificent edifice of liberation. The Yasastilaka tells us that it is the prime cause of salvation, just as the foundation is the mainstay of a palace, good luck that of beauty, life that of bodily enjoyment, royal power that of victory, culture that of nobility and policy that of Government.' Right knowledge (value knowledge) and ethico-spiritual conduct are acquired through Samyagdarśana (spiritual awakening). Thus it forms the root and backbone of what may be called religion. The Uttarādhyayana envisages that right knowledge (value knowledge) remains unattainable in the absence of right belief (spiritual awakening), and right conduct (ethicospiritual conduct) is out of question without right knowledge (value knowledge).
Spiritual Awakening (Samyagdarśana) and Other Essays