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18 PART II
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GUIDELINES TO MAHAVIR-DARSHAN
near it. But in no case does he find it. This coming near the path is merely an accident. It is useful only if he proceeds further in the same direction and happens to perceive the path If, on the contrary, in his bewilderment he turns his face again in the wrong direction, his coming near the path has been futile.
The state when accidentally the burden of karmas is somewhat lightened and the soul feels an urge for inner realisation is known as Yathapravrttikarana. It is not reached through deliberate and systematic pursuit but comes as an accident. The Jain scriptures compare it with a stone rolling in a mountain stream. The stone rolling unconsciously in the stream gets a round shape. It had not desired or striven to obtain that shape but the turn of events gave it that form. Similarly, the soul with a perverted attitude is unable to discriminate between right and wrong, nor does it make any deliberate attempt to realize the truth. Still, accidentally it reaches a stage when the major part of the accumulated karmas is removed through experience of its fruit and the new accumulation is not so heavy that the entire stack will last beyond a certain limit.
As a result of this the soul feels an urge for inner purification but this urge is not so strong as to force the aspirant to make a definite start: It rises and subsides like a bubble. Only in a few cases it is so strong as to bring about a decisive turn. In the first case, the urge can occur innumerable times without having a permanent effect. The death of a beloved person, the destruction of a thing greatly desired or another such occurrence generally produces this type of attitude temporarily.
If the urge to self-purification is sufficiently strong, the soul advances to the stage of Apurva Karana. The Karmic stack is further reduced in this stage and the soul takes a decisive step, the most important, in an aspirant's career. It is known as Apurva as it was never achieved before. The aspirant in this stage reaches the point of breaking the tie of perversion.
The third step Anivrttikarana, is reached on breaking this tie. The aspirant attains it after subduing the five types of Mohaniya, i. e. Mithyatva Mohaniya and the Anantanubandhi degree of four passions and thus reaches the fourth Gunasthana. It is known as
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