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CHAPTER V
JAINA YOGA
INTRODUCTORY In the first chapter we studied the fundamental nature of the Jaina attitude. We found that the Jaina is a thoroughgoing realist who would not let a single element given in experience be rejected as false on the verdict of abstract logic. In the second chapter we studied the Agamic conception of the nature of experience which the Jainas consider as the ultimate organ of the determination of the nature of reality. The experience of one who is not omniscient is imperfect and vitiated. In the third chapter we studied the nature of the fundamental defect that vitiates the experience of imperfect souls and is the ultimate condition of worldly existence. In this connection we studied also the various conceptions of the basic defect in the other systems of Indian thought and also recorded their criticism from the Jaina standpoint. We were then naturally led to the consideration of the Jaina doctrine of karman which attempts at explaining the various expressions of the worldly existence conditioned by the basic defect. The Indian systems of philosophy are not mere speculations on the nature of things but, with all sincerity and earnestness at their command, dive deep into the mysteries of the universe in order to find the way out of the limitations of the worldly existence vitiated by perversities and crippled by various privations and disabilities. The perfect unfolding of the potentialities of the self is the object aimed at. The pursuit of truth must culminate in the realization of the truth. And the pathway or the process leading to the discovery of truth must be made a public property so that anyone who would care to tread upon or practise the same might discover and realize the truth. The systems of Indian philosophy therefore have chalked out their respective paths of spiritual realization. The ordinary sources of knowledge are found to be inadequate to the discovery of the ultimate truth, being subject to the limitations imposed by the senses. The intellect, though possessed of a superior status in that it organizes the data of experience into a system, is also not immune from the limitations of the senses and has been found to record varying and conflicting conceptions which cannot all be true. Kant has proved the erratic tendencies of intellectual understanding when it is allowed to wander in the unchartered regions which are beyond the jurisdiction of senses. Our reason is a valued instrument but its services are bound to be negative. It can enable us to determine that the ultimate reality cannot be of this or that sort.
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