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THE FOURTEEN-FOLD PATH TO FREEDOM
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postpone one's own liberation and turn one's face towards all sentient beings which are struggling their way upward towards final accomplishment, and stretch out a helping hand by reviving the knowledge of eternal truth
Perhaps not all Jains have been sufficiently aware of this idea. It would however, in my opinion, seem strange if the core teaching of compassion and utter detachment from selfishness were to suddenly appear unreal and be abandoned when the universal insight is acquired. No doubt the highest compassion and unselfishness would compel the soul on the threshold of liberation to turn back for the sake of all beings, rather than spend eternity in lofty bliss and omniscience, but only for oneself. This would bring the Jain teaching very close to the Buddhist and theosophical distinction between pratyeka Buddhas - Buddhas for themselves alone - and Buddhas of Compassion, who accomplish all that can be accomplished by a human being and abandon the reward of a very long period of bliss and peace to help the world. However only 48 souls will function as Tīrthamkaras in the world's great cycle of pleasure and pain in which all human development takes place, whereas Buddhism and theosophy teach that everyone can make the choice to postpone his blissful reward over and over again when inspirited by compassion for all beings that still suffer from the illusions in which they are caught.
The higher stages describe the processes of overcoming and eliminating all restrictions, and the actions that must be undertaken to perform this. Depending on one's situation in society and one's determination, the Jain may choose the path of the layman or laywoman first, or at once the more strenuous path of the mendicant. The conditions for both are described in the fifth and seventh stages.
Now that one has really chosen to approach Truth and to take away every obstruction that hinders the full shining forth of what one is in one's essence, one needs to actively cultivate ethics in the purest form possible. A great help in keeping one's determination alive even during difficult times, is to take vows, before a teacher and before one's inner self.
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