Jain Journal 2002 10

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 27

JAIN JOURNAL VOL-XXXVII, NO. 2 OCT, 2002 one with the Brahman who is all-in-all. The Paramatman of Jains has nothing to do with the world beyond what he knows and sees it, because it is his nature to see and to know.
Paramātman, according to Jainism, is the unpolluted and the purest state of Atman. Each Atman should aspire to become a Paramātman and when it becomes a Paramātman it retains its individuality, which is not submerged into some universality. A.N. Upadhye observes:
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The Jaina conception of divinity inclines towards realist pluralism. Every soul, when it is completely free from karmas, becomes itself (Svayambhu), and it is the divinity. Divinity as a type, a level of spiritual evolution and a culmination of spiritual attainments, is one; but every soul, even when it attains divinity, retains its individuality. It is the free soul, the higher self, as distinguished from souls in mundane existence. The Jaina God as a type is an ideal to all the aspirants on the religious path. The conception of God holds a great vista of optimistic vision before the religious devotee. It is often said that the aim of religion is the realisation of the potentially divine in man; this means that the self not only knows itself but becomes itself (svayambhuta), now immune from all matter; by becoming itself it becomes the God which nature was already inherent in the spirit but, upto this time, crippled by karmas; and this then is the state of perfection.""
In self-realisation, the Self realises or regains what are his own inherent properties or powers and which are part of his nature. He never leaves or gives up his svabhāva (nature) and get changed into something else, i.e. never adopts the bhava (existence or nature) of another object or substance.20 As Yogindudeva states, "appa so paramappa a" (Atman is Paramatman), which reminds us of "soham" (I am that Real Self, as Kundakunda says in Niyamasāra (gāthās 6365), and I am Brahman as Upanisads say). Atman is the preliminary
18. Isa 18, Katha 4.1, etc.
19. Sri Kundakunda's Pravacanasāra. Introduction by A.N. Upadhye (Agas. 1984), p. 88.
20. Jagdish Prasad Jain "Sadhak", Spiritual Enlightenment. Paramātma Prakāśa by Ygindudeva (New Delhi: Radiant Publishers, 2000), Book I, Verse 18, p. 75. 21. Ibid.,Book II, Verse 174, p. 1110.