Fundamentals Of Jainism

Author(s): Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: Veer Nirvan Bharti

Page 88

80
FUISDAMENTALS OF JAINISM
conception of a thing before we can ever hope to acquire it; and the necessity of being scrupulously precise is even greater in the spiritual realm where the soul's aim and ambition are centred round in ideal which it wishes to realise in its own self. It follows from this that the fullest information rather than a negative description-neti, neti, (not this, not this concerning the great ideal of perfection and joy must be insisted upon, at the very outset, by an earnest seeker after moksha. Existence, it will be noticed, is not the attribute of anything in nature which is not possessed of a single positive content of knowledge, so that where every conceivable attribute is negatived there remains nothing but non-existence to stare the philosopher in the face. If those who insist upon defining an existing being or thing in this negative manner would only analyse the nature of speech, they would not fail to perceive that the converse of rational beings consists in the expression of ideas clearly conceived by the mind, and that it is impossible to have an idea of a thing which is absolutely devoid of all elements of affirmation and certainty. Hence, it is very clear that those who describe the godhead in terms of negation have really no idea of the supreme status which the soul is to attain on obtaining mirrâna.
The idea of moksha cannot also be clear to the minds of those who look upon the world as an illusion with a solitary soul as the only reality and the true substratum of life in all forms. For either this all-pervading soul does not stand in need of moksha or it is to attain it at some future moment of time; but in the former case it is impossible to explain the longing of living beings for a taste of true happiness and in the latter the very possibility of the attainment of perfection and bliss by different individuals is excluded by the hypothesis itself, because where the substratum of individual life is a solitary soul there can be no release except for all living beings at one and the same time. Furthermore, the idea of moksha for the individuals, cannot, on such a supposition possibly mean anything niore or less than utter, absolute annihilation of individuality, since the emancipation of the only true soul must be a signal for the exeunt of all others.
It is thus evident that no true concept of moksha is possible on such a hypothesis, and since the realisation of the great ideal of the soul is not compatible with a vague or inconsistent conception