World Problems And Jain Ethics

Author(s): Beni Prasad
Publisher: Beni Prasad

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to surrender to every stimulus from the environ. ment, he would be lost in contradictions, trivialities and superficialities; the deeper springs of life would remain untouched and he would soon be overwhelmed by a sense of emptiness. He must grow in self-control as in so many other ways. He must select, form habits of selection and harmonise the selections. He must deliberately transfer the interest from the rejected possibilities to those which are selected. The energy evoked by the rejected stimuli is enlisted in the service of those which are selected. The cravings which are generated but not followed up are diverted to mix with those which are accepted for satisfaction. This process of sublimation begins as soon as the child absorbs the social morality. The individual grows in sublimation with the increase in energy, stimuli and cravings on the one hand and moral selection, organisation and self-control on the other. Sublimation is the moral antithesis of repression. If impulses, cravings and tendencies were not controlled they would dissipate energy in all directions, arrest. growth and ruin the constitution. But if they were. merely repressed, they would form complexes, generate internal conflict and disharmony and force their way up in disguise through dreams, motives, anxieties and perversions. Sublimation is the organic device of achieving self-control without disintegration of personality. Every one attains to sublimation in a greater or lesser measure but