Compendium of Jainism

SR No.: 001202
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: T K Tukol, A N Upadhye
Publisher: Prasaranga Karnatak University Dharwar
Publication Year: 1980
Total Pages: 352
Language: English
Classification: Book_English & Philosophy
File Size: 17 MB

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PATHWAY TO LIBERATION
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spiritual progress.. In Jaina literature Haribhadra defines Yoga as that which leads one to emancipation and terms the Dhyāna and Samādhi were more in vogue than Yoga.
Surrender to God and emergence of the Self in the Supreme Self or the Brahman is emancipation according to the Hindu philosophers. Since Jainism deos not recognise any such God, there is no room for the idea of merger. But the process of selfrealization seems to be identical in character, except that it is called God realization. R. D. Ranade has pointed out that metaphysics, morality and mysticism are inseparable in the highest spiritual development of man. According to mystics, however, intuition is a faculty of supersensuous experience which is aroused in us by proper spiritual initiation and practice.. And physiologically, we might say that the faculty of intuition is concerned with what might be called central instead of peripheral initiation. It is not the outside sense-experience that counts; it is the experience is generated inside us in our intuitional process, that is, in the process of following the path of God, that matters.... So, INTUITION, supersensuous experience and central initiation are involved in the evolution of mystical experience. 32 Ranade has referred to three factors as incentives to spiritual life : 1) Great
birth and great is the human life and so the betterment of our life is to achieve the ideal. 2) We look back upon our past life and that supplies us with a sublime conception of immortal life serving us as a sort of aspiration towards the spiritual life. 3) Man's knowledge of his senses which often deceive him and even destroy him provides an aspiration to rise above the senses and utilize them for a higher and proper purpose. 33 According to him, Nirvāṇa is not extinction but blissfulness, involving the wiping out of all our passions, desires and impulses merging ourselves into the Absolute.34
This is the Hindu conception of mysticism which "denotes an attitude of mind which involves a direct, immediate, first-hand, intuitive apprehension of God.” It is the direct experience of the mutual response between the human and the divine indicating the