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JAINISM AND WORLD PROBLEMS
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life even, because' whosoever shall save his life shall lose it.' In a word, he takes leave of the world, and applies himself whole-heartedly to be rid of the body and matter, till one day he is actually set free from the material bonds, when his real Divine Nature is restored to him, and he becomes fully, and in every part of his being, Divine. This is nirvana. The word in Jainism does not mean extinction, but the obtainment of the Divine Status. Those who have entered nirvana are now living in the enjoyment of Immortality, Omniscience, Uninterrupted, Uninterruptable, Undiininshing Bliss ; and Their number is legion.
This is not the time to enter into a proof of these stateinents, and the reader would soon get tired if I tried to do so. But he should read my books some of which I have named above to understand these things clearly. I may say that large numbers of men have read these books and have been satisfied with the reasons and explanations given.
The point to be considered here is the effect of the Jaina Doctrine on men. It will fill the mind with a glad certainty about the future—the future is not only assured ; it is also glorious and good. He who believes in such a doctrine may say to himself : 'I may not only become God; I am already a God !' What is lacking is not a thing from the outside, but the putting aside of the body and detachment from the outside. It is a state higher than that of hope, and far above mere optimism. It is a inatter of scientific certainty which is absolute. If the individual does not avail hiinself of the Doctrine, and lives in the senses, he ruins himself, and defiles his soul, upon the conditions of which depend the conditions of his future life, virtue leading to happy and vice to unhappy future re-births. A inan whose mind is saturated with the noble truth will long hesitate in the face of the most trying temptation before yielding to it. Probably he will prove his worth on the occasion ; but if he yield to
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