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LESSON VI GUNASTHANAKAS
(Ladder of Development) Introduction :
To anyone who knows the nature of moksha and the means prescribed for it in the Jain scriptures, there will be no difficulty in apprehending that the realisation of the self is preceded invariably by a series of conditions which must be fulfilled one after another before attaining to perfection. This can be stimulated to a ladder of fourteen steps known as gunasthana.
These fourteen stages can be squeezed into four only as follows:
The first stage, we may roughly speak of as the stage of impulsive life, of lust and enjoyment when the soul is quite in the dark as to its true destiny and goal and is least removed from the animal existence.
The second is the life of conscious selection of pursuit where the goal of true methods of realisation are still misapprehended.
The third is the life of conscience and faith where the ends are taken not as we like, but as we ought to. In the fourth stage all such conflicts disappear altogether and the soul shines forth in all its naturalness and omniscience.
The first Gunasthana is known as Mithyadrashti. It represents the state of wrong attitude. The soul has been rotting in it from time immemorial without finding the real path.
It is not a step towards realisation, as might be assumed from its inclusion in the first steps but the lowest state, where the spiritual journey is not even begun. There are some stages even before the beginning of that journey, and they are included in the first gunasthana.
We have already stated that karmic effect is the main cause of the soul's wanderings in this world. This effect is sometimes thick and sometimes thin. When it is thick, the soul is led astray. When it is thin, the soul takes a turn towards the real path, but without making a definite start. We can compare these occasional inclina. tions with the wandering of a traveller who has lost his way in a jungle. He is sometimes far from the real path and sometimes very
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