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Essentials 10
his spiritual body. This mystical sound protects and leads all sorts of living beings ang illumines their way to Moksha or the liberated state by determining the suffixing and prefixing limits of their life - fields. We therefore ought to open our heart and mouth and offer prayers expressing the sense of gratitude.
It matters not if one calls him Shiva, vishnu, Brahma, Sugata or Jina. All these are only the different names of one and the same enlightened soul. Arihant or the destroyer of enemies, the conqueror, is the ultimate soul.
The most important feature of Jainism is that it emphasizes the quality alone, as an object of worship which is the base and apex of personality and never the individual, its age, form and sex being variable and momentary. In this context the line reads :
गुणाः पूजास्थानं गुणिषु न च लिंगं न च वय:
According to Jainism Ishtadeva is he who
the supreme Being, without any worldly