Path of Arhat

SR No.: 001745
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: T U Mehta
Publisher: Sohanlal Smarak Parshwanath Shodhpitha Varanasi
Publication Year: 1993
Total Pages: 262
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Spiritual, Religion, & Principle
File Size: 15 MB

Page 76

The Ultimate Reality
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The concept of the absolute matter, creater and sustainer of the Universe is born out of human experience that everything tangible and intangible is the result of causation and creativity and therefore there must be some ultimate cause or a creator from whom everything else has resulted. This line of reasoning has led the human mind to various types of philosophical speculations and approaches. It may not be illogical or irrational to think that there must be some coordinating force which is transcending the mateiral world and human understanding. But Belief in this transcendental co-ordinating energy has led mataphysics to the discovery of an all powerful and all embracing Divine soul. All the objects of universe are subject to its ordinance and will. It is ulimate and real cause of all things tangible and intangible experienced in Jife. Thinkers, have adopted two well-known approaches-ontological and cosmological. Ontology is metaphysics concerned with essence of things or being in the abstract. Cosmological approach accepts the law of causality or the principal of "Sufficient reason'. To ontological approach God is real as there is some force beyond our minds and ideas. He is “That than which nothing greater can be conceived" (St. Anselm ). The starting point for cosmological approach is not God but are worldly objects, it states that every existing thing or feature, we encounter in the universe must have a cause or reason. There must be something else which has brought it into existence. This 'something else' is itself an effect or result of some prior cause. If, say the cosmologists, you go on tracing this link of effect and its cause, you must ultimately conclude that there is one final reality, the root cause of all effects, and it has sufficient reason within itself. This approach historically goes back to Aristotle's argument that there must be an “unmoved cause of motion,
Jaina thinkers hold both these views to be true only partially. To Jainas, the conclusions drawn by these two views leave much to be desired from logical point of view. Having once accepted the existence of some force beyond our mind