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184 :: Structure and Functions of Soul in Jainism
of our experience are not contained in the mental structure, but it gains, when it admits of the effect of a stimulus, in a capacity in the form of a tendency or a propensity to generate another experience. This very potency persists in the mental structure and becomes a cause of behaviour separated by an interval of time from the moment of generation of the potency. A similar position is held by the Yogācāra by replacing complexes by discrete cognitions. Psychology establishes the truth of the identity of the self by means of a process of integration of complexes, while the Yogācāra propounds the doctrine of the vāsanās to explain the same fact. The difference between the two conceptions lies in the fact that for psychology the process of integration yields something which transcends the diversity of complexes, while for the Yogācāra the principle of vāsanā does not lead to a unity objectively true. In spite of the aforesaid fact both believe in the modification of the complexes and the cognitions to effect the varying manifestations of the self.
Conclusion
This survey of the conception of karma or the principle of limitation of the self's powers in different systems of philosophy brings us to the following conclusions, Firstly, the self and its distortions are held to be valid at the levels of existence, where they are found to exist. In order to save the immutability of the soul the empirical level of existence is conceived; but at this level the self and its distortions both are considered to be true. The Nyāya-Vaiseșika does not introduce such a level, but postulates some non-eternal qualities in the soul to account for the self's distortion. The peculiarity of Sankara's advaita lies in the fact that the empirical level is delusive as compared with the transcendental one. Secondly, the distortion of the self's powers is caused by something which is different from the self. Thus the secret of limitation, distortion and variation of the powers of the self is not alien to the self's constitution,
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