Atma Siddhi

Author(s): Shrimad Rajchandra, J L Jaini
Publisher: Shrimad Rajchandra Ashram

Page 47

18
ATMA-SIDDHI
SOUL IS, that the soul is entirely different from matter. Our idea of pure soul shall be merely an idea, corresponding to no reality if there can be no pure soul, i. e., one entirely free from the dirt of Karmic matter, This shows that the soul can be pure. That is, there can be Liberation.
As a fact the whole controversy centres round the first proposition. As soon as it is clear, that there is a soul and these are its qualities, then the rest of the propositions follow easy enough.
Doubt 1. If the means of the Liberation is the undoing of Karmas, it is natural that the soul shall never be free from the Karmas.
This is true only of the soul not free from Karmas, i.e., of the soul embodied in Karmic matter. It is the nature of the soul in this mixed condition to do Karmas. Otherwise the pure soul does no Karmas. It is absorbed in its own eternal Qualities.
Doubt 2. That which has a beginning must have an end: and that which has no beginning, has no end. So Karmas from being attached to the soul from ever must remain with it for ever. And if Liberation has a beginning, it must have an end also.