Book Title: Jainism by Vividus
Author(s): Ramnik V Shah
Publisher: Ramnik V Shah Canada

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Page 154
________________ conscious while becoming It from all eternity. God is the name man has given to everything that surpasses him, everything he cannot know, but submit to. There is a 'Something' which is indefinable and unexplainable and that 'Something' man has always felt dominating him. It surpasses all possible understanding and dominates him and so, religions have given it a name, man has called it 'God'. When according to Jainism, you become 'God', you have a state of non-manifestation, a state of Siddha, a Tirthankara disembodied. When you are becoming God' you have the state of manifestation viz a Man', 'Arhanta', Kevali', embodied Mahavira, embodied any one of the innumerable Siddhas and Tirthankaras. Mün, by the very fact of his becoming 'God has a message to give to mankind and all lifeforms who have both consciousness and intelligence that each of them can become so if he follows the path as shown by him. He is a Tirthankara' who has shown the way. He is a Siddha' who has realized the summum bonum of manitestation. Such 'Souls' are worshipped by Jainas by their names as Tirthankaras' or in a nameless and an impersonal way by calling them Siddhas and Arhantas'. In Jainism, the entire creation consists of only two realities, sentient life (Jiva) and insentient things (Ajiva). There is, however Pure consciousness which is beyond these realities and the entire Creation. It is the Unmanifest Divine where Siddhas, Tirthankaras, and other countless Souls who have total emancipation from the creation cycles take their abode for eternity. In the creation are found only all the embodied souls (Jiva) and insentient things (Ajiva). Making use of the unique way of expression in Jainism viz of "Syadvad" that is the formulation of predications from multiple standpoints, or points of view which is only a translation in thought word and deed of Samyaktva the attitude, outlook and perception permanantly enshrined in mind and heart, it can be said of Jain religion and its followers that they accept the fact of only One God from the point of view of the eternal chain of succession 38

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