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JAINISM: A THEISTIC PHILOSOPHY "GOD IN JAINISM”
unprofitable. There is a middle path, avoiding these two extremes, discovered by the Tathāgata Buddha, a path which opens eyes and bestows understanding, which leads to peace of mind, to the higher wisdom, to full enlightenment, to Nirvāņa (Mokşa), liberation. **
The first noble truth of Buddhism is that clinging to existence is misery. The second noble truth is the cause of misery. In Gautama's words “Thirst leads to rebirth accompanied by pleasure and lust, thirst for pleasure, thirst for existence, and thirst for prosperity.” And the third noble truth is the cessation of thirst - a cessation that consists in the absence of every passion- with the complete destruction of desire. The fourth noble truth is of the path, which leads to the cessation of sufferings. The holy eightfold path is right belief, right aspiration, right speech, right conduct, right means of livelihood, right exertion, right mindfulness, and right meditation. The substance of the teaching is that without entering into any discussions into the origin and destiny of men, one should lead a holy moral life and that will lead him to summon bonum.
It was generally believed that Nirvāṇa meant final extinction and death, and Prof. Max Muller was the first to point out, what most scholars now accepted that Nirvāṇa does not mean death but only the extinction of the sinful condition of mind, that thirst for life and its pleasure, which brings on new births.
Nirvāṇa was not applied to any state after death, it was a term applied to a certain state of life here. What Gautama meant by Nirvāṇa is something attainable in this life, it is the sinless calm state of mind, the freedom from desires and passions, the perfect peace, goodness and wisdom which continuous self-culture can procure for man
Rhys Davids opinioned “The Buddhist heaven is not death but it is on virtuous life here and now that the Pitakas lavish those
4SV.R. Gandhi, “The systems of Indian Philosophy", P-98
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