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DISCOURSE XI
OMNISCIENCE
Gentlemen!
You must be well remembering that so far we have discussed about soul in thirty-sixth chapter of Shree Uttaradhyayana Sutra. You must have remembered important features of our discussion. Any one can well remember by thinking and pondering over the matter heard and the same when digested in mind. It is no use shaking off the matter from your brains after leaving the audiencehall. There are five steps in study, and re-capitulation is the third step. This means you should revise again and again what you have studied. Some teacher asked his pupil “Oh child! betel leaves are rotten, horses get obstinate, the lessons learnt are being forgotten, and the loaf on the pan is burnt up. What is the cause ?" The pupil was intelligent and he gave one common reply for all the queries. He replied: "Sir, without turning over". This reply means: if betel-leaves are turned over at intervals, they would not, be rotten, if horse is taken on rounds at intervals he would not be obstinate. lessons learnt if revised would not be forgotten and a loaf on the pan if turned over would not get burnt." So whatever you learnt and heard should be revised.
In the preceding discourses, I hinted at the topic of omniscience or Kevalagnana. I shall discuss on the same subject to some length.
Knowledge and intuition form the nature of soul. Therefore you cannot conceive of soul devoid of knowledge and intuition. When soul is in Nigoda condition its knowledge is least revealed and when the soul becomes omniscient its knowledge is revealed in perfection. Kevalagnani means possessed of perfect knowledge --omniscient. The omniscient soul knows all entities with all the phases fully. It further knows all past, present and future happenings.
Under the force of actions performed by a soul, it traverses in the universe either as a God, as a human being, as a creature or as a resident of hell. Now we shall show in which form of birth a soul can acquire omniscience.
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