The five Charitras (conduct for further stoppage of the influx)

[Full title: Three Stages (1): Saṃvara (Self-restraint)—(F): The Five Charitras]

Then, there is the Five-fold Conduct for further stoppage of the influx. The five-fold conduct is but the Five Rules along the lines of which a jīva should move himself to stop the inflow of karma-matter into its constitution. They are:

(1) Sāmāyika charitra—which enjoins on the mumukshin, the abandonment of bad companions and retirement to seclusion for meditation.

(2) Chedopasthāpanīya charitra—which enjoins a full and complete confession with repentance to a guru of the sins and crimes done intentionally or otherwise by a mumukshin jīva and humbly submitting to any punishment that might be inflected on him in consequent thereof.

(3) Parihāra viśudha charitra—It goes without saying that without the purification of the heart, right-vision into the metaphysics of things and thoughts leading to right knowledge resulting in the deification of the inward self is impossible: we have also in the Bible, "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God."

So without chittasuddhi or purification of the heart nothing is possible. Now there are various means and disciplines whereby the heart can be purified. Of these the most preliminary for a mumukshin is to serve the sadhus, the monks. The most typical of these services is the services rendered to the monk engaged in Tapa—austerity. Performance of tapas may cover the period of even eighteen months and if a mumukshin serves a monk who is thus engaged in Tapas in such a manner as to see that nothing there takes place externally as to break the Tapas of the monk, he is said to be achieving the purification of the heart to a certain extent. The psychology underlying this is too obvious to require any further elaboration.

(4) Śūkṣmasampardyacharitra-The more the heart is purified the more the light of truth will be reflected thereon and he will realize the temporary character of the things worldly, along which he will become less and less attached to them, with a growing spirit of renunciation born of right knowledge of the real values and functions of these. This is how should a jīva cultivate apathy and indifference to things worldly. So long a jīva living, moving and having his being in this empirical world of ours, he must have to work and the more he works out things with attachment the more fettered does he become; but if he does his duty for duty; s sake without waiting for the result thereof, he will develop by this his mode of conduct, a spirit of renunciation which will help him to preserve the equanimity of temper in the midst of intense activity.

(5) Yathākhyāta charitra.—Having thus gradually developed the spirit of doing things without the least attachment he will attain to such a state of being when all the five fold rules of conduct will be observed automatically so much so that the jīva himself will be left to himself for introspection into and self-reflection upon its own nature, phases and phenomena.

Thus we see how the various ways of arresting the inflow of karma into the constitution of the jīva can be classified into fifty-seven modes or types viz, five samity, three guptis, ten yati dharmas, twelve bhāvanās, twenty two parishahas and five-fold conduct-charitra. A jīva desirous of salvation from the thralldom of the senses must make strenuous efforts to gradually stop the influx of fresh matter foreign to the soul. For as we have already seen it is these karma particles getting into the constitution of the jīva that blind its vision into the metaphysics of things and there by prevents its right knowledge without which right conduct is held to be impossible.