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JAINISM: A THEISTIC PHILOSOPHY "GOD IN JAINISM"
According to Sāmkhya consciousness is not a mere quality but the soul's very essence. The soul being pure, eternal and immutable is not blissful consciousness (ānanda-svarūpa) or stream of consciousness (caitanya-pravāha) or material consciousness. Sāṁkhya's self (Purusa), remains untouched by joy or sorrow, migration bondage and liberation." Bondage and liberation are phenomenal. The latter requires the formal and final cessation of all the three kinds' sufferings without a possibility of return. This neutral and colourless state of kaivalya is again an unattractive picture with no appeal to the aspirant. Similarly, in Yoga, freedom is absolute isolation of matter from self.20
The Vedāntic philosophers, like Śamkara, Rāmānuja and Vallabha, maintain that in highest state of perfection, there is the pure light of consciousness and bliss, although there is variation in their thoughts regarding the state of mokṣa in relation to the self and the Brahman. The Sāṁkhya-yoga conception of the nature of the mokșa comes nearer to Upanișadic view, which presents the self as in the state of pure consciousness and bliss and of the ultimate reality of the Brahma.
Madhva philosophy posits the souls as atomic in nature and is different from Parabrahman. So according to this school of thought, the liberated soul lives in sānnidhya (near) of Lord Vişnu. Similarly Viśistādvaitins accept the plurality of souls. But in its real nature, the soul is not different from Parabrahman. When the soul is liberated it reaches the Brahmaloka and gets merged in the Brahman.
Vallabhācārya maintains that souls are atomic in nature, and in liberation, some soul reach the state of Brahma in the their state of merger with the Brahma, and other souls due to devotional preponderance enter saṁsāra in the state of liberation for sake of expression of devotion.
18 Sāṁkhya-kārikā of Isvarakrsna, 62
Sāṁkhya-tattva-koumudi, 64-68; Sāṁkhya-pravacana-bhāsya, 3.65-84 Dr. Ramjee Singh, “Jaina Perspective in philosophy and religion", P-135
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