Jaina Mysticism and Other Essays

Author(s): Kamalchand Sogani
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

Page 27

accompaniments, the antarātman has developed spiritual awareness, but the paramātman attains to the highest realization of spiritual experience that passes understanding27 In the state of paramātman the empirical self is metamorphosed into transcendental self. In other words, the empirical self becomes universal self in the sense that it is now capable of intuiting all the objects of the world owing to the emergence of omniscience. In view of the fact of possessing omniscience, it will not be contradictory to say that the omniscient being is all-pervading, and that all the objects are within him, since he is the embodiment of knowledge and all the objects are the objects of knowedge.28 The omniscient being neither accepts nor abandons, nor transforms the external objectivity,29 but only witnesses and apprehends the world of objects without entering into them, just as the eye sees the object of sight.30 In a similar vein Yogindu points out that the universe resides in the paramātman and the paramātman resides in the universe, yet the paramātman is not the Universe. 31 Again the paramātman or the universal self comprehends within its sweep all the objects of the world, so it may be said to be immanent (sarvāgāha) in the universes. 32 To be more clear, Jainism propounds the theory of knowledgeimmanence and self-transcendence, just as we have light's immanence and sun's transcendence. The Universal self not only manifests infinite intuitive knowledge, but also experiences unalloyed bliss which is self-originated, supersensuous, unique, infinte and interminable.33 The correlate of infinite knowledge and bliss is infinite energy without which the former two cannot be sustained. Thus we may say that the cognitive, conative, and affective tendencies of the self find supreme satisfaction in the state of paramātman. It is of capital importance to point out that Jainism gives credence to the infinite plurality of paramātmans just as there is ontological pluralism of empirical selves. Every empirical self can become universal self and there are as many universal selves as there are empirical selves without any contradiction. In Jaina terminology, every jīva is potentially a siddha and in siddhahood self-individuation is sustained.
Jaina Mysticism and other cssays