Atma the Self

Author(s): Punyadarshanvijay
Publisher: Sanmarg Prakashan

Page 59

.... ĀTMĀ
ILLUSTRATION OF THE CHART:
To understand and appreciate the chart here is a simple illustration :
Imagine a villager from a remote interior forest who has never seen, heard or dreamt about the outside world, except his limited surroundings. due to lack of education, he can utter only a few words and he eats the locally available roots, wild berries and uncooked food.
By a queer chance he is taken to a big city by an aircraft. He sees oceans, steamers, railways, cars, hundred storey buildings, cinemas, televisions, well-dressed people and excellent food, etc.
The Self....
After six months, feeling lonely, he desires to go home and he is taken back to his village. There is excitement everywhere. Villagers are eager to know what he has seen and known. How can he describe the flying experience, oceans, railways, hundred storey buildings, the food he has eaten, etc ?
There are no words, his knowledge is limited, how can he explain ? There are things which can be explained, there are others which can't be expressed. He tries by similes and by gestures. His friends and relatives can't grasp and appreciate, it is beyond their imagination. Even though what he has seen, known and eaten is an absolute truth but they consider him delirious, or out of his mind or stark - mad. For a change, let us consider ourselves in the place of the villager and his friends. Desires and passions, pleasures and miseries we know, but not the reasons of/and the results thereof. Why?
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We have to study, the 'Karman Theory' - the cycle of death and rebirth, four kinds of existences. The soul, its immortality, its power and attributes, Right Faith, Right Knowledge, and Right Conduct to reach the final state of Salvation and Eternal Bliss. We have just glimpsed Jainism. May by the grace of Supreme Divine we achieve necessary strength, spiritual enlightenment and forge ahead and reach the final state of SiddhatvaGodhood.