I am The Soul Part 02

SR No.: 006791
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Tarulatabai Mahasati
Publisher: Shri Gujarati Shwetambar Sthanakwasi Jain Association
Total Pages: 466
Language: English, Hindi
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 18 MB

Page 67

... hence, it is always eternal
The pursuit of three gems enables the atma or life energy to know itself as separate from the inanimate and to experience the bliss of the Self. Knowledge is an exclusive quality of the chaitanya. And that is why chaitanya is chaitunya.
The utma has to experience the Self with its own knowledge. This knowledge is not the knowledge of some book, it is not figurative, nor something that was heard or read, but the power of sensation that rests in the atma through which the atma has to experience the chaitanya.
A jiva with samyak darshan does experience the Self, but this feeling is intermittent; it is there sometimes and not there at other times. In the progressing state of elevation of the soul, when the jiva reaches the kevaljnana stage, this intermittent feeling of bliss becomes continuous and then the jiva remains in it forever.
This continuous feeling of bliss is possible only if atma is eternal. If atma were momentary, or subject to destruction, it could not have a continuous feeling at all. The Arihant Parmatma accepted such a continuous feeling and then preached. He says,
We and all those jivas who have attained Siddhi, have experienced the eternal bliss of the atma and even now are experiencing the same. This is the proof of the eternity of the atma'.
In Atmasiddhi Shastra, the disciple has raised a doubt about the eternal nature of atma. The benevolent Gurudev is explaining to the disciple. He is trying to prove the eternal nature of atma with various substantiated arguments. In the next gatha the same essence is explained. Here we may feel that the subject is being repeated. The question occurs as to why a self-realised great man like Srimadji is repeating the same thing again and again.