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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
806
Ātmap and Mokşa
religion. Some of the systems like the Buddhism and the Nyaya-Vais'esika seek only eterna! freedom from pain and from all the states of consciousness; they aim at a void and a state of the absence of consciousness. Nowhere else do we come across the highest ideal of Moksa of the Advaita Vedanta which consists in experiencing oneself as the Brahman, the highest Ultimate Reality which is eternal, infinite, all-pervading, free from all imperfections, immutable, eternally free, and full of perfect knowledge and perfect bliss, and which is above all spatio-temporal determinations, above dualities of good and bad, and above all sorts of relativities. It is the highest experience of bliss and knowledge of the Absolute, and it is the most evolved idea of Moksa. There cannot be an idea still higher than that. It contains all the elements of the concepts of Moksa of the other systems and still positively it possesses its own unique nature. It is the supreme state of eternal illumination. Śar :kara's idea of Moksa, of attaining immortality by entering into an indistinguishable unity with the Brahman is superior to all others as it is the attainment of immortality by the infinitisation and universalisation of the finite soul. Nay, S'awkara never admitted that there exists anything like a real finite soul different from the Supreme Self or the Brahman. His Brahman, being the only Reality, alone exists in truth, although, it appears in various particular forms due to the adjuncts (upādhis) caused by nescience. His thesis is that there never was and is any finite thing in reality other than the Brahman. The world is illusory,
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