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You, I and others are souls suffering from the bondage of karmas, i.e. our souls are in bondage of foreign matter and foreign impulses. The soul's existence in its natural state, that is, in freedom from karmas and purely as Atma is the state of being Ishwar (God). That which has the Aishvarya (wealth) of knowledge, etc., may be described as Ishwar (God). This Ishwar - hood is the natural state of the Atma, which is not revealed when it is engaged in karmas. When Atma however, realizes that being engaged in karma is not its real nature and fixes its attention on itself, then alone do omniscience, power etc., manifest themselves in it and we can see nothing among all the objects in the universe with greater power than of Atma. It is, therefore, my positive belief that Ishwar (God) is another name for Atma and does not signify a different being of greater power.
Rajchandra in his response to question number 25 explained the concept of Avatar as follows:
....I am not prepared to believe any soul to be a portion of God; how, then, can I believe that such was the case with great and holy souls like Rama and Krishna? There is no error in believing that these two were un-manifest states of God, but it is doubtful whether perfect Godhood had become manifest in them.
Gandhi agreed with Rajchandra's views when he said":
God never incarnates himself as an Atman and is never born as a human being. He is ever the same. When, from our human point of view, we see special excellence in some human being, we look upon him as an Avatar. In God's language there is no such Avatar; it exists only in the language of human beings.
He further said, "I talk of God exactly as I believe Him to be. Why should I beguile people into error and work my own perdition. I seek no reward from them. I believe God to creator as well as non creator. This is the acceptance of many-ness of
Pg.142 Gandhi & Jainism
