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THE JAINA THEORY OF KARMA
nation, on certain images or associations of images; and physical pain is the actual pain that springs directly from painful physical causes. Whenever there is present in the consciousness a feeling of pain and there are no physical causes present to account for its. production, it is due to the mind's dwelling on associations that are painful or disagreeable in the extreme. Similarly the presence of a sensation of pleasure in the absence of physical causes cannot but be due to the presence in the imagination of mental pictures that are of an extremely agreeable nature. Spiritual happiness, however, arises only when the soul is rid of the physical objects and of their mental counterparts, that is to say, of images, both, and is left free to itself, to feel its natural condition or state, which, as stated before, is purely joyous. It should be noted that both the kinds of pain and. the corresponding two kinds of pleasures, that is to say, the physical and the mental types of pleasure and pain, are, in their nature, only sensations, real or imaginary, of which those of the pleasant typeare agreeable and the other disagreeable. But spiritual pleasure is not a sensation; as it is independent of the senses; and does not arise from a contact with real or imaginary things. It is an emotion, the emotion of freedom, that implies nothing if not freedom from. an external troublesome imposition, whether real or imaginary. The schoolboy who feels joy, on hearing of his success, does so because the tidings has brushed aside all those disturbing mental pictures. which were filling his mind in connection with a possible failure, leaving him 'severely' alone. The type of happiness which he then feels is thus neither sense-produced nor imaginary, but spiritual which comes from within. Should mental pictures arise in his mind in connection with the idea of success, the type of happiness will then be changed instantly into mental pleasure.
The principle to be deduced from these facts is that happiness is. the natural state of the soul which is marred or manifested according as the individual consciousness is agitated and swayed by desires or freed from their influence. The soul is, then, a pure embodiment of joy, which is realizable and realized fully only when all its desires are destroyed. The same is the case with knowledge, which, like happiness, consists in the states of our own consciousness. For nothing like
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