Gandhi Before Gandhi

Author(s): Bipin Doshi, Priti Shah
Publisher: Jain Academy Educational Research Center Promotion Trust Mumbai

Page 98

GANDHI BEFORE GANDHI
some one has died that they might be saved, merely from a belief in this person, would be a theory of fatalism, because those who have lived a pure and virtuous state and have not accepted a certain theory will not reach that state while those who accept it will reach the perfected state simply for that reason and no other, is not justified. The faith in saviors is simply this, that by following out the divine principle which is in our own selves, when this is fully developed, we also shall become Christ, by the crucifixion of the lower nature on the alter of the higher.
According to Jains there are two kinds of knowledgel) Knowledge received by sensual organs and mind and 2) Knowledge received by Soul directly without the need of sensory organs or mind. However in both the cases knower is soul only. Sensory organs are receptacle of outside world but not the knower. No dead body can see even if eyes are present
Another important point is that the soul in pure form possess infinite knowledge, it is due to Karmic bondage that this knowledge is not exhibited. To gain knowledge what we need is to shed off those Karmic particles which are obstructing the soul's infinite faculty of knowledge.
Jain Theory of Knowledge
There are five Gateways of Knowledge, all unfolding through the laws of evolution and Karma. The first in the senses is the lowest from of life, there is only one sense that of touch. In higher forms of life, there are two, three, four and five senses. Through the senses a limited form of knowledge is unfolded. This knowledge is called Mati. The second source is study and reading, the Shrut. The first two are through sensual organs. The third is Avadhi, or the psychic faculty, through which finer and more subtle things are known directly by soul without the senses. The fourth is Manahparyav mind-knowing, by which the mental processes of others are known and understood again directly by soul. The fifth is Absolute Knowledge, Keval, in which all limitations of body and brain are removed. This state is not a loss, but rather the acme of consciousness. It is the knowledge of all Reals and their all modifications of all the time. Real means all conscious and non-conscious objects of the universe.
The knowledge acquired directly by soul is of a sounder nature and of a more correct kind because the obstacles which come in the way of senses