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A4
THE ENLIGHTENED VISION OF THE SELF
“Self” may be considered to have been obliterated, or superceded and what remained was pure consciousness. In Jainism, consciousness constitutes the very essence of jira and is regarded as the essential or distinguishing characteristic as well as innate nature” of soul and as such equated with it. And since this quality of consciousness” is inherent in all living beings, it may be said to be universal. But this has nothing to do with the Universal Consciousness (Brahman) of the Vedantin, which has its monistic and pantheistic grandeur, and insists on one and only one "Absolute” unchanging reality and as a cosmic principle.
Refuting Uparishadi notion of postulating a Supreme Essence, Brahman or Atman, J. Krishnamurti observes: “Any 'we' is still the result of a thought generated self. Even identification with the idea of an all-encompassing Self, such as the Vedantic Atman is just another thought construction, and another manifestation of illusion."78
The characteristic of pure consciouness, G. Srinivasan says, is regarded as “transcendence in immanence," and as such it is necessarily “related” to the modes of intentional consciousness. It does not mean transcendence from one reality to another or from unreality to reality but only from one poise of consciousness to another within a single realm of consciousness. The eternal reality of metaphysical soulsubstance or Brahman of the Vedantin, on the other hand, exists independently of any relation to temporal empirical existence and as such necessarily falling outside the scope of phenomenological analysis. Srinivasan adds:
For the metaphysical soul-substance (or atman in the Vedantic sense) is regarded as really unrelated' and 'unrelatable’ in its nature (szarpa) to the changing modes of intentional consciousness or at best only extrinsically related; consequently, the soul-substance is believed to be really ‘unaffected by the empirical life of bondage and is conceived to be eternally free' and 'pure' in its intrinsic nature.79
The Jaina conception of consciousness is also different from the description of the Buddhists or David Hume's analysis of consciousness, which are confined to the poise of intentional consciousness or conditioned Self. Unwilling as they are to admit the
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