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with the body. For the body is mortal but the Self is not mortal. The Self dwells in the body and as long as he thinks that the body is I and I am body, the Self is enthralled by pleasure and pain, it is not perfect, it is not the immortal Self. But as soon as th: Salf knows that he is independent of the body and bacones free froin it, not by death but by knowledge, then he suffers no longer, neither pain nor pleasure can touch him. When he has approached this highest light of knowledge, then there is perfect serenity. He knows himself to be the highest Self and therefere is the highest Self, and though while lifa lasts, he moves about a nong the pleasant sights of the world, he does not mind them, they concern his bɔdy only, or his bodily Self, his ego, not his absolute Self. He goes a step further and lays down that it is not the invidual soul that is the highest self, the higbest Self is rot different from Brahma ; the interposition of ignorance, rescience or illusion leads the individual Self to believe that he is separate from Brabma; as soon as ignorance is removed, be is Brahma. He does not becoine Brahma, for really he was nothing less than Brahma. A post in darkness may seem to be a thief to a person but when the darkness is removed he realises that fact that it is a post and not a thief. On the disappearance of darkness, the object which was seen does not become a post but the fact is realised that it is and has ever
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