The plan I have endeavored to follow in this book is
the procedure mentioned earlier (on pages 17-18), synstatis, analysis, and
synthesis making respectively the parts I, II, and III of the book.
The Jain doctrines are summed up in nine fundamental
truths; and to put together the four sections of part II, we perhaps
cannot do better than give these nine principles, prefaced with the two
remarks that 1) reality exhibits distinct and contrary aspects, such as
permanence and change, etc., 2) the whole truth about anything cannot be
expressed in one predicate.
SUMMING UP
We live socially in a real and, in a sense, everlasting
universe of sentient, conscious beings (jiva), and of inanimate,
insentient, unconscious things (ajiva). We attract (asrava)
subtle forms of matter to ourselves, and we assimilate it (bandha);
the natural qualities of the soul are thus more or less obscured, and,
consequent various conditions of weal (punya) and woe (papa)
are experienced. We have been doing this, and suffering the consequences
forever in the past - before birth and since, perpetuating our bodily
existence through deaths and rebirths continually. This continual
attraction and assimilation of matter generates in us energies which are
not essential factors of the soul's existence, but which hinder the soul's
natural activities. These unnatural energies may be stopped and destroyed
by stopping the influx (samvara) and by ridding the soul of matter
(nirjara). This is effected by practicing the thirty-five ordinary
rules of conduct, self-control, twelve special rules of conduct, and
concentration, as described in the preceding pages; and by practicing more
advanced forms of mental and moral disciplines, not given in this book. In
this process of stopping the inflow and of ridding the soul of matter, the
individual develop gradually through fourteen stages, in which there
appears, more and more, unimpeded activity of the immortal self, in the
form of right knowledge, wisdom, love, strength, blissfulness, etc.,
until, at the finish, every atom of physical matter in combination with
the soul and the consequent ignorance, foolishness, cruelty, weakness,
pain, misery, etc., are removed from us for ever (moksa).
The above statements are put forward as being literally
true; they are not figurative or mystical; they are about concrete
realities, are not abstractions, and are of universal application to
living beings.
Philosophy
