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Soul exists ...
The pursuit of the three gems is for attaining Moksa. The jiva who performs this devoted practice becomes liberated from all the ties of the material world forever.
This same analysis has been done in the 'Atmasiddhi Shastra'. In the prologue, after stating the Sadguru's greatness and the need to avoid being wayward, the characteristics of Matarthis to avoid matartha and the characteristics of Atmarthi to attain atmartha have been related. Now it comes to the main substance. The six padas, to explain which this Shastra has been composed, are all mentioned in but one Gatha -
31TCHTE, a forgat' furcht,
HTCRIT', aosta , HTH 3419 gaf' .....83 The first pada - “Atma is there’. Why was this taken as first? Unless the existence of Atma is accepted, there will be no value to the pursuit. Since there is Atma, there is its pursuit! If there were no Atma, then for whom should there be a devoted practice? Hence, first of all there needs to be the belief that Atma is there.
A majority of people are unwilling to accept the Atma. Among them, the human who accepts the powers of the material world to be everything, who is blinking under the glaring influence of science, does not believe in the existence of Atma. Where there is no faith in the existence itself, there all questions about the Atma become meaningless.
The scriptures mention the case of King Pardesi. He would not hesitate in sinning for he firmly believed that Atma did not exist at all. Since there is no Atma, there can be no papa - punya, and in the absence of papa - punya there can be no attainment of heaven or hell; thus being totally atheistic he was fully immersed in the world of sin. Moreover, he was inquisitive, and so to prove that what he believed was true he had tried various ways to search
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