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INTRODUCTION
xxix
I had to cut through the maze of the tangled literature on karman and had to size it up and present it in a logical shape. A curious student who may feel impelled to pursue the study of this doctrine in Jaina literature will, I hope, now start with a clear perspective which will lighten his labour and save him from confusion of issues of which there is every risk in the unaided study of the original literature.
My last chapter is on yoga. Yoga affirms its faith in the direct realization of the ultimate secrets of existence and the possibility of its achievement for a human being. It may savour of mysticism. But it is mysticism in the noble sense of the term and not in the sense of an illogical or anti-intellectual dogmatic assertion of a fact. Philosophy must culminate in the conviction of truth. But the intellectual resources that are given to a human being, though a valuable possession and asset in the progress of higher life, are found to be inadequate at the end of the journey. Philosophy may give us at best an intellectual conviction which is not and cannot be a substitute for direct intuition. The great teachers of India have unwaveringly affirmed their faith in direct intuition. This direct intuition is transcendental because it emerges only after the senses have exhausted their functions. The Jaina believes that our senses are rather hindrances to the realization of full truth. The knowledge that is achieved by means of the senses is mediate and indirect. The senses are more or less barriers standing between the knower and the truth to be known. Our empirical knowledge including that afforded by reason is bound to be hazy, indistinct and remote, beause the self does not envisage the reality as it is face to face. Besides, our senses do not give us a complete picture of the truth but rather, like a prism, they give us a distorted and blurred view. According to the Jaina philosopher consciousness is not a factitious product. It is innate in us and the fact that consciousness comes in contact with reality through a medium and in a graduated scale is rather an accident and a limitation. The power is there, and once the barrier between the conscious knower and the object is removed the full and complete knowledge of reality is bound to materialize. The Jaina has shown and other philosophers may agree that our imperfection of knowledge is the direct consequence of our ethical imperfection imposed by the accumulated burden of karman inherited by the self. The self only inherits what it has acquired in the past. This inheritance, call it karman or avidyā or the Original Sin, has got to be done away with. The best and surest means is ethical perfection and perfect knowledge which can be acquired by a course of spiritual discipline as prescribed by the yogic process. It will be unscientific attitude to condemn it a priori. It stands as a challenge and as an exhortation to make the experiment and to test
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