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V. 1]
DOCTRINE OF GUŅASTHĀNA
275
as the first, the second, the third, and the fourth type in the following enquiry as we did in the last chapter too. For the final consummation the soul has to remove all these five conditions. The soul has weakened the hold of the perversity of attitude but has not practised abstinence from evil and immoral deeds. This it has to do by increasing its purity and augmenting its energy for right willing and right conduct. Then the soul has to secure immunity from the spiritual inertia (pramāda). But all this is only preliminary activity. The most important activity for spiritual progress, however, is the subduing of the passions. And this is possible only by the repetition of the threefold processes of yathāpravrttakarana, apūrvakarana, and anivytti karana. There are now two ways open for the soul. It may climb up the spiritual ladder by suppressing the passions or it may climb it up by totally annihilating them. The former mode of spiritual progress is known as upaśamaśreni (ladder of subsidence) and the latter as kşapakaśreni (ladder of annihilation). The fifth condition of bondage viz. the threefold activities lasts up to the final stage of spiritual ascent, and its absolute elimination is immediately followed by the disembodied emancipation of the soul. It will be helpful for the understanding of the stages of spiritual development (gunasthāna) if we give a brief description of the twofold ladders at this stage of our enquiry.
While climbing up the ladder of subsidence, the soul suppresses, by undergoing the three processes of yathāpravrttakarana etc., the four ‘lifelong' passions at the outset and then the three vision-deluding karmans. The soul then attains such purification as enables it to rise up from spiritual inertia. But the progress is not steady. The soul repeatedly gets up to the stage of spiritual vigour and falls back to the stage of spiritual inertia. It fluctuates between the state of spiritual vigour and the state of spiritual inertia a hundred times before it reaches the state of steady progress through the repetition of the three processes and begins the gradual suppression of the following sub-types of the conduct-deluding (căritramohaniya) karman: the nine quasipassions?; the second, the third, and the fourth types of anger; the same three types of pride ; the same three types of deceit ; and the second and third types of greed. Then the soul suppresses the fourth type of greed and attains a state where all the twenty-eight sub-types of the deluding karman are completely suppressed. The soul's minimum stay at this stage of absolute suppression of the deluding karman is for one instant and the maximum for an antarmuhūrta. After this stay the soul invariably falls down to the lower stages on the rise of the suppressed passions. The stronger the rise of the passions, the lower is the fall. A soul can climb up this ladder of subsidence only twice in the same life. But the soul which has climbed up the i Vide supra, p. 234.
2 See Kgi, p. 73.
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