________________
220
Jaina View of Life
2. For a Jaina, the highest ideal is Mokşa, freedom from the wheel of saṁsāra. It is to be attained through right intuition, right knowledge and right conduct. 26
Due to the activity, the soul gets entangled in the wheel of Samsāra. This process of entanglement is beginingless but has an end. The soul gets entangled in the Samsāra and embodied through the operation of karma. It gets various farms due to the materially caused conditions. (upadhi), and is involved in the cycle of birth and death.
But the Jainas believe in the inherent capacity of the soul for self-realization. The deliverance of the soul from this wheel of Saṁsāra is possible by voluntary efforts on the part of the individuals. The veil of Karma has to be removed. This is possible when the individual soul makes efforts to stop the influx of Karma by saṁvara and remove the accumulated Karma by Nirjara. When all the obstacles are removed the soul becomes pure and perfect and free from the wheel Samsāra. Being free, with its upward motion, it attains liberation or Mokşa.
However, the journey of the soul to freedom is long and arduous, because the removal of Karma involves a long moral and spiritual discipline. The journey has to be through fourteen stages of self-realisation called Guņasthäna. The soul has gradually to remove the five conditions of bondage - mithyātva (perversity), avirati (lack of control), pramad (spiritual inertia), kaşāya (passion, and triyoga (threefold activity of body, speech and mind). In the highest stage of spiritual realization, the soul reaches the stage of perfection and omniscience. This is the consummation of the struggle.
Radhakrishnan says that it is not possible to give a positive description of the liberated soul. The state of perfection is passively described as freedom from action and desires, a stage of utter and absolute quiescence. It is a state of unaffected
26. Radhakrishnan (S) : Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1. p. 333.
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
