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150
Jaina View of Life
God. There is no place for divine grace either. We have to depend on our own efforts, as every soul is divine.
The ontological status of the individual soul in the mokşa is different in two religions. The Virasaiva aims at union with the Absolute (aikya), while for the Jaina each soul retains its individuality in the highest stage. This has perhaps given the Jainas the need to emphasize the methods of the aşgā ngayoga as a discipline and a method.
We can say that the end of human life, according to Indian philosophers, except perhaps the Carvākas, is liberation from the bonds of empirical existence. Makşa, as the ideal, is difficult to attain. Few have attained it; and the attainment of such a trans-empirical end had to be adjusted according to the needs of individuals in the light of the prevailing social structure. Therefore, to compare one type of Yoga as against the other without understanding the background would be a grievous error. We have to look at this problem in the full perspective of life. Moreover, it is difficult to understand the comparative significance of Yoga unless one lives it. 61
IV. The soul has the inherent capacity for self-realization. But self-realization is a long process. In the course of its eternal wanderings in various forms of existence, the soul at sometime gets an indistinct vision and feels an impulse to realise it. The soul has to go through the various stages of spiritual development. These stages are called guṇasthana, and they are linked up with stages of subsidence and destruction of the Karmic veil. These are fourteen stages of spiritual development. The first stage is characterised by the presence of mithyadsşti, perversity of attitude. Here we accept wrong belief and are under the false impression that what we believe is right. This is caused by the operation of mithyā tva-karman. However, we are not entirely
51. Şanmukha Sivayogi : Akhandeš vara Vacana : Ratnākara Varni
emphasizes the impossibility of understanding Yoga without living it.
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