The Truth

Author(s): O P Jain
Publisher: Veer Nirvan Granth Prakashan Samiti

Page 60

THE SEVEN TATTVAS
51
from its nature will be impure and false. The Right Conduct of the soul can be said to be its act of knowing. This alone is, then, the Right Conduct to be aspired by all souls desirous to attain perfection, purity or divinity. It we can attain a state of mind in which we only know things, but do not attach from our side any attributes of good or bad, pleasurable or painful etc., then we are approaching the Right Conduct. Nothing is good or bad by nature and it is our own passio attribute these qualities to them. This part of our conduct is false, not according to our real nature, and is the cause of all suffering. It is created by impurities. For an impure soul, the efforts or conduct necessary to purify it can also be called Right Conduct and this conduct gradually changes and merges with the real conduct of the pure soul i.e., act of knowing only, as the soul advances on the path of liberation and attains divinity.
The Right Conduct has been detailed under the description of Samvara, p. 46. This is rigorously followed by monks. However, it is too difficult to be followed by a beginner and impracticable for a householder. For such people, less rigorous discipline has been prescribed keeping the objective to be the same. Here faults of minor nature are permissible and only the gross nature of sins and passions are to be avoided. After the person has mastered this easier form of conduct, he can gradually follow the rigorous conduct of a monk and can go on purifying his conduct alongwith spiritual uplift till finally, liberation is attained. It will be seen that the above path aims, not at turning mankind into an army of hungry beggars, constantly begging for boons from some real or imaginary superhuman agency, not at converting its votaries into fanatics of requited love, revolving moth-like, round some luminous spiritual magnet, to be ultimately absorbed by it, but at raising everyone to the supreme status of Godhood.
It should be noted that there is and can be no compulsion on a person with reference to rules of conduct. Every one should put in as much good conduct as he can, without shirking or overstraining It should be done with enthusiasm and cheerfully.
5.12.1 Right Faith : It is the belief in the divinity of one's own soul and a disbelief in the patronage of any external protector or god. Such a soul knows itself not to be a miserable perishable thing of matter, but a real God, immortal, omniscient, blissful and irresistible. It is a belief that my soul is distinct and separate from all external objects—even my body is external to me. These external objects can never be mine, can never result in happiness and are always