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Nature of Salvation
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regains its pure form, its all infinite qualities and becomes free from suffering (Dukha) and free from birth and rebirth cycles. The soul liberated is liberated from bondage, from samsara. This is Moksa.
The liberated souls (Siddha Jiva) are devoid of motion, gender and wordly feelings, are identical and are not different from each other. Yet they may be differentiated from their past point of view. The liberated souls are souls that have attained Moksa which means souls absolutely pure and have regained the powers: infinite knowledge, perception, potency and bliss. “Jainism, thus, pictures the state of Moksa not as something which is created a new by human efforts; but it is something like the recovering or regaining of lost object. Moksa according to Jainism means self finding, it consists in recovering one a consciousness of soul which had been forgotten or had become obscure due to delusion or subreption (Mithyātva). It consists in regaining one's lost self.” The Gunasthanas or Stages of Spiritual Development:
From the state of complete dependence upon the Karman to the state of complete detachment from it. 14 stages, the so called, Ganasthanas (state of virtues) can be distinguished. These fourteen stages are marked by the gradual subsidence of eight Karmas, "There are stages of development in which the soul gradually delivers itself, firstly from the worst, then from the less bad, and finally from all kinds of Karman, and manifests the innate faculties of knowledge, belief and conduct in a more and more perfect form."16 The following are the different stages:
1. Mithyādrsti: the unbeliever 2. Sasvadanā Samyagdrsti: the one who has only a taste
of the true belief. 3. Samyag mithyādrsti (Or Misra): the one who has a
mixed belief Avirata Samyagdrsti: the one who has true belief but
has yet self control. 5. Desvirata: the one sho has partial self control.
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