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I am the Soul
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remaining untouched by the bhavadharma, (that is failing to catch the spirit behind these observances), called them merely good deeds, amassed punya as a result, which took him to the high ninth heaven of Graiveyaka and there he enjoyed the heavenly pleasures for a great length of time.
So what? Nothing at all, just a big zero. After heaven he got back to the travel of rebirths. There was no shortening of the cycle. In spite of the whole effort, he remained unaffected inwardly, only the outwardly expression became pronounced.
What should have been the effect on the inward? There ought to have been a split, antarabheda. A delineation of the limits of the body and the soul, that comes under the realm of Bhedavijnana, a science. The word science is interesting. In fact, our Tirthankar was the greatest scientist of all. Hence the eptithet Ananta-vijnani.
Today Science is considered poles apart from Philosophy. But that is far from the truth. In fact, as Science delves deeper it gets closer to Philosophy. The ultimate result of Science is Philosophy. Knowledge is a subject limited to the intellect. Yet when Knowledge is brought into practice, it becomes a Science. Special knowledge is Science. Knowing any one aspect of a thing is Knowledge and knowing it in its totality is Science. Knowledge is a search. Science is research, while Philosophy is the achievement of total search, hence it is a search for Truth. It is in fact, a step ahead of search or research; it is the discovery of the pure, timeless truth. Hence Knowledge and Science both get absorbed into Philosophy. Philosophy takes up from where Knowledge and Science give up in fatigue. The Tirthankar not only knew his soul in totality, but also experienced it. His state of experience was uninterrupted. It was a state of experience along with eternal knowledge, hence he was called the Anantavijnani, the knower of the eternal science.
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