JAINA Convention 1999 07 Philadelphia

Author(s): Federation of JAINA
Publisher: USA Federation of JAINA

Page 85

10th Biennial JAINA Convention
Does Jain Religion Believe In God?
Muni Manak Kumar
Each society and religion has created an image of God. He has been given different names though. God, Ishwar, Bhagwan, Paramatma are all synonymous.
Does Jainism believe in God? Many people have opined that Jains only believe in the existence of the Soul (Atma) and not the God. This opinion is not totally correct. Jains do believe in the existence of the God. If belief in God is taken out of the religion what is the purpose of Sadhana, Sanyam and Tap. In fact Jainism gives the pure, scientific and true definition of God. According to Jain religion once the soul (Atma) is devoid of all Karma, and desires it becomes God (Paramatma). At that stage of Completion the fully developed consciousness acquires complete knowledge, and becomes blithesome and supreme. It sheds all desires and there remains no need for it to acquire another bodily form. It relieves itself from the tedium of births and deaths.
Jain religion does not believe in God as the creator or the nurturer. Neither does it believe that it keeps the account of all the deeds of the living. Further more it does not believe it to be a Naught either. A belief in God as a creator or nurturer shall endow Him with desires and in that event He cannot be considered to have shed all his desires and have attained complete Perfection. As long as complete Perfection is not achieved that stage cannot be considered as that of God or Paramatma.
To conclude, we say that Jain religion does believe in the existence of God but it does not believe Him to be a Creator, Nurturer or the Destroyer. According to Jainism any Atma, once it becomes completely pure it becomes Parmatma or in other words God. This is the reasoning behind Jain belief that there is not only one God. The stage of being God is that of complete purity and any Atma which attains that stage becomes One. Once that stage is attained nothing else remains to be achieved. This is the goal of the religion and the destination of Atma.
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You can teach a student a lesson for a day, But if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, He will continue the learning process
As long as he lives.
- Clay Bedford
PHILADELPHIA, PA
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