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Jaina Ethics
Parmātman :
This stage is the goal of all spiritual exertion. Here all conflicts disappear and the soul shines forth in its natural qualities. This is a state of complete harmony. This state is comparable to jivanmukta and mukta of Hinduism and anāgāmin and Arhat-ship of Buddhism.
The jivanmukta state can be compared to Arhat, who is an embodied Paramātman; whereas the Siddha state is the state of disembodied liberation. We have already dealt with the nature of liberated soul in the second chapter. This stage is free from birth, old age and death, where the four infinitive qualities of soul shine forth on account of freedom from all the four ghāti karmans in the case of an ar hant and of all the eight karmans in the case of a Siddha.? Five labdhis
A soul before attaining right attitude in the fourth gunasthāna passes through stages which are five in number. The first four of them are possible even without right attitude. Therefore, they do not indicate any real spiritual progress. They are ethically important only if they lead to right attitude through the fifth labdhi.
1. The first labdhi is called kṣāyopasama, which means destruction-cum-subsidence of the kārmic matter.4 This labdhi is not the result of any conscious effort on the part of the aspirant but occurs automatically in the normal course of time.
2. As a result of first labdhi, the self inclines towards auspicious types of actions which lead to happiness. This is called visuddhi labdhi.5
3. The third labdhi, desanā labdhi, means obtaining a teacher who initiates and leads into the nature of six dravyas and nine padārthas. If no such teacher is available in hell,
1. Kārtikeyānupreksā 198. 2. Niyamasāra, 176. 3. Labdhisāra, Bombay, 1946, 3 4. Ibid., 4. 5. Ibid., 5. 6. Ibid., 6.
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