Dr. N.L. Kachhara
Our knowledge, perception, vitality, thoughts, feelings and emotions represent the attitude of the soul (bhava) at any instant. The attitude of the soul (bhava) is determined by karma. There are three ways in which karma exercise their effect (i) fruition or rise of karma, the karma become active after completing their passive period (ii) suppression of karma, the karma are suppressed temporarily by will power and made ineffective, and (iii) the karma are destroyed completely by powerful actions. Based on this there are five kinds of attitudes of the soul.
- Attitude of the soul by fruition of karma (audayika bhava)
- Attitude of the soul by suppression of karma (aupashamik bhava)
- Attitude of the soul by annihilation of karma (kshayik bhava)
- Attitude of the soul by partial suppression and partial annihilation of karma (kshayopshamik bhava)
- Attitude of the soul by natural disposition (parinamika bhava).
The last attitude of the soul is determined by the general make up of the karma body. The first four attitudes are due to induced (artificial) irradiation of karma and the fifth one is due to natural (spontaneous) irradiation of karma.
The fruition of karma decides the realms of existence, the gender and the attitudes, like anger, ego, deceit, greed, wrong belief, wrong knowledge, non restraint, etc. The suppression of karma develops attitudes of true faith and true conduct. The annihilation of karma develops true faith, true conduct, right perception, right knowledge, vitality, etc. Partial suppression and partial annihilation of karma develops true faith, true conduct, perceptions of vision, non vision and clairvoyance type, empirical, scriptural and clairvoyance knowledge of right or wrong type, telepathy, vitality, partial restraint, etc. The general body of karma determines the state of the individual soul and its ability or inability to obtain salvation.
We recall the four main powers of the soul, knowledge, perception, bliss and energy. There are five agents of bondage of karma - Perverted views, Non restraint, Carelessness, Passion and Activities. Perverted view means false notions regarding the soul or misunderstanding about "Who am I?" It means that the right knowledge and the right perception elements are obscured. The term non-restraint implies there is no self-control, which may lead to involuntary evil deeds. Thus, the bliss element is defiled. The term carelessness implies general inertia in working towards salvation. Thus the energy element is obstructed. Passion is the main agent of karmic fusion. It has four main sub-agents-anger, pride, deceit and greed-anger and pride are grouped as "attachment" and deceit and greed are grouped as "aversion" since these reflect such emotional states. The term activities refer to general activities of the body, mind and speech.
Jain philosophy dwells in detail on methods and practices to stop karmic fusion and removing the existing karma. These practices include austerities, meditation and penance. Austerities imply control of the senses with extreme alertness while keeping positive non-violence in the forefront. However, one should not practice austerities to the extent of harming oneself by trying to go beyond one's capabilities.
The journey of the soul from the stage of human being to the highest stage of pure and perfect soul is identified by fourteen spiritual purification stages as follows. Instead of traditional terminology we use the terms used by K.V. Mardia to describe these stages.
- Deluding world - view.
- Lingering Enlightened World- View (EWV)
- Mixture of deluded and Enlightened World View
- Non-restrained Enlightened World- View
- EWV with partial self-restraint.
- EWV with careless self-restraint
- Careless-free self - restraint
- Complete Self - Restraint (CSR) with unprecedented Volition
- CSR with uniformly mild volition
- CSR with subtle greed
- CSR with suppressed greed
- CSR with eliminated greed
- Dynamic omniscient state.
- Static omniscience state
The first stage is applicable to all beings and it is here that the karmic matter is at its densest for human beings. The karmic matter decreases up the stages and is zero at the 14th stage. We could view the purification process as through the karmic density with fourteen important points on it. To understand the dynamic process of karmic fission, it should be clearly understood that as karma are shed, there is an increases in the energy of the soul, which allows further spiritual growth. It is assumed that future karmic influx will be checked, and there will be a further release of energy and knowledge elements, which allow the soul to search for its true nature. Another important point to note is that the effect of the karmic matter is mostly first suppressed rather than altogether eliminated. Furthermore, each stage severely limits karmic fusion and diminishes the old karmic matter, and at most of the stages the degree of anger, pride, deceit and greed are reduced gradually, with anger being the first and greed being the last to be eliminated.
The first stage corresponds to all living beings with a deluded world-view. In the beginning every soul is in this stage of complete ignorance, i.e. it has the four passions at the maximum level. However, every soul strives to release its four elements from karmic matter. This process can be triggered off by either internal experience, such as remembering past lives, or external experiences such as hearing to sermons. This event is followed in a flash by passing through stages 2 and 3 to stage 4, which corresponds to "Non-restrained Enlightened World -view". This experience is the complete revelation of the true nature of life and the reality of the soul, i.e. true insight.
This first experience of true insight lasts only for a few moments and it comes from jamming the insight - deluding karmic component rather than from its elimination. The jammed component will be quickly unjammed and will assert its influence again. Hence soul will revert to its extreme perverted stage with all five karmic agents operating with full force. However during this fall, the soul goes through the third purification stage for a short time where the gross passions remain suppressed but there is no longer true insight; this stage is described as the stage of mixture of Enlightened World-View. Below this is stage 2, the Lingering Enlightened World - View, in which the fourth degree of passions reassert themselves and instantaneously drop the soul down to stage -1 again. In the first transition to the fourth stage, the insight-deluding component is suppressed only, but in subsequent (guaranteed) transitions, of longer durations, there is also partial elimination of this component. After a number of such transitions involving partial elimination - cum - suppression, the soul gets firmly established in the fourth stage to proceed to the fifth stage and beyond.
At the fourth stage perverted views are removed and equanimity is attained. It is this increase in purity, which allows the flash of true insight to take place. The partial removal of the four passions leads to increased energy and knowledge elements of the soul, which makes the soul search for true knowledge more vigorously than before. Also it places significant less emphasis on the manifestation of karmic matter including on one's own body, psychological states seen through the four passions and one's personal possession to which it had formerly identified itself. Thus, a pure and serene state is attained.
In order to reach the fourth stage, austerities are not mentioned explicitly, but implicitly it is assumed that they are required since, to be in the fourth purification stage, one has to have all the four passions reduced which cannot be achieved without restraint. The first awakening removes some of the karmas leading to a moderate degree of self - control / restraint, i.e. one does not get into a fit of anger, intriguing deceit, blinding pride, devouring greed etc. Further, on the perfection of the fourth purification stage, there will be evidence of more tolerance and less anger, more humility and less pride, more straightforwardness and less deceit, more contentment and less greed.
At the fifth stage one starts working to achieve even greater restraint; that is one follows various vows that lead to partial restraints. At the sixth stage, full restraint is accomplished. The firth stage is equivalent to the way of life of the ordinary laymen whereas the sixth stage corresponds to following the path of a monk. At stage six full disciplines and higher vows are achieved.
At stage seven, one removes the carelessness to zero, implying also that anger goes to zero. However, some remnants of the four passions still persist. One rises through meditation to decrease the degree of pride, deceit and greed to the zero degree at stage eight, nine and ten respectively. When in these states, if the four passions are suppressed rather than eliminated, then one will only be able to reach the eleventh stage from which one will be forced to move downwards. However, if the four passions and their effects are fully eliminated during the trances, so that the degree of greed becomes permanently zero, then one will jump straight from the tenth stage to the twelfth stage.
On the instant of attaining the twelfth stage, three remaining primary karmic components, namely knowledge obscuring, intuition (perception) obscures and energy obstructing, are automatically eliminated, leading to the attainment of the thirteenth stage which is the stage of dynamic omniscience. At this stage only yoga governs the remaining activities which are necessary for the physical body to still function. These activities do not, however, lead to new karma. Also, secondary karmic components of the omniscient being gradually fall off until eventually none of them remain. In the final moments, the body is in a state of total immobility. This state is the fourteenth "Static Omniscience" stage. This stage lasts only for at the most 48 minutes prior to liberation. The moment death occurs, the soul, completely and forever freed from the cycle of rebirth, attains salvation.
We have indicated how transfer takes place from one stage to another. Fig 7.1 shows the various transitions. From stage 1, we go into stage 3 then 4 and then either progress to stage 5 or fall back to stage 2. Again from stage 5, either we proceed to stage 6 or we go down to stage 4 or 2. From stage 6 we proceed to 7 or again we fall down to 5 or 4. From stage 7 we precede to 8 or, as at 6, we go down. From stage 8 one can proceed to 9 or again we can go down. From stage 9, transition to 10 is possible. One can jump straight from stage 10 to 12. Stage 11 is very slippery and one can go downward anywhere, usually to 6 or 7. Once one has reached stage 12, and then there is no fall and one progress to stages 13 and 14.
The celestial beings, humans, animals and infernal beings can have the first four stages. Humans and auspicious animals can attain the fifth stage. Only monks attain the sixth and higher stages. The seventh to twelfth stages are possible only for monks practicing meditation and confined to inner self; duration of each of these stages can be less than 48 minutes.
All one-sense organisms and beings up to the second stage lack perceptual / cognitive knowledge, and scriptural knowledge. Beings in the third stage have a mix of this knowledge and ignorance. Beings from 4th to 12th stages possess perceptual, scriptural and clairvoyance knowledge. Telepathy knowledge is possible from 6th to 12th stage. The beings in the 13th and 14th stages are omniscient as mentioned above.
Perception is of four types - vision perception, non-vision perception, clairvoyance perception and omniscience perception. The non-vision perception is acquired by sense organs other than eyes and mind. The vision and non-vision perceptions are possible in 1st to 12th stages. The omniscient perception is capable of direct knowledge of a paramanu to the largest material aggregate. Clairvoyance perception is possible for beings in 4th to 12th stages. The omniscient in the 13th and 14th stages can perceive the whole loka and also aloka.
Generally human beings are born in the first stage, in exceptional cases, like that of Lord Mahavira; fourth stage can also prevail at the time of birth. A human being has to complete the journey from the 1st (or 4th) to 14th stage in one lifetime.
Fig 7.2 shows the development history of consciousness graphically. The purity of the soul is drawn on Y-axis and the time on X-axis to some unknown scale. The time is counted from the moment an inactive soul exits its permanent abode and enters the active life as one - sense organism. At this stage only a negligible fraction, say 10-50, of its consciousness is expressed.
The pace of development of consciousness was earlier assumed to be proportional to the current level of consciousness. Hence,
DC/dt = KC
Where C is consciousness K is a constant. This gives an exponential trend of development of consciousness as shown in Fig. 7.2. The development is slowest at the level of one-sense being and progressively becomes faster as consciousness increases. The soul first develops the senses and reaches the level of five-sense animal. This marks the end of the period of development of senses. At this stage the mind gets developed and mental development of the soul begins. On further development of consciousness the soul gets human body and emotional development also begins. As a human being the soul remains in the first spiritual stage till awakening of identity takes place. An awakened soul eventually enters the fourth stage of development.
As an immobile one sense organism the soul has consciousness of karmic enjoyment only. On further development as two sense organisms the soul also possesses the karmic consciousness. These two kinds of consciousness prevail till the fourth stage of spiritual development. At this stage the soul also develops cognitive consciousness and so now onwards in higher stages the soul possesses all three kinds of consciousness. The development process after the 4th stage becomes fast and the soul proceeds towards the final stage in a measurable amount of time. The figure shows that the consciousness is one percent pure in the 7th spiritual stage, 50 percent pure in 12th spiritual stage and 99.9 percent pure in the 13th omniscient stage. These values are arbitrary but they do indicate the ignorance of common human beings and the relative power of the omniscient and the pure and perfect liberated soul. The liberated soul is body less pure consciousness and is never embodied again.
There is scientific evidence that spiritual development is genetic and hence karmic. The spirituality, as measured by self-transcendence is innate. It comes from within, not from without. Of course spirituality has to be developed, just like any other talent. But evidence suggests the predisposition is there from beginning. Spirituality is based in consciousness, religion in cognition. Spirituality is universal, religion is not. Spirituality is genetic; religiousness is learned in the classical sense - from parents, teachers, religious leaders and seers. Gene scientist Dean Hammer who is working on "spirituality gene" says by exercising our free will, we could change the nature or quality of our genes. Through our effort dormant genes could get activated. For example, creativity gene can lie dormant till person is passed her middle age. At a later stage, one might have found time and suitable circumstances to activate her dormant creativity genes. The God gene acts by influencing the brain's capability for various types and forms of consciousness, which become the basis for spiritual experiences.
The development of genes is related to development of consciousness. Jain philosophy has suggested ways to develop the consciousness as mentioned before. By practicing austerities, restraint and penance through exercising his free will one can climb the ladder of spiritual stages and become an omniscient.
