Book Title: Jambudwip Part 02
Author(s): Vardhaman Jain Pedhi
Publisher: Vardhaman Jain Pedhi

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Page 173
________________ depressed, etc. It simply is-like NIRGUNA BRAHMAN with which it is one. To put it all in an extremely simple, although perhaps a little crude, way, misery, sorrow, anger, etc. are 'states of mind', not states of the soul within. It is thus that Samkara-Vedanta will explain why man feels angry, miserable, pained at heart, etc. although he is in reality God who is lifted above all sorrow, anger, sense of shame, etc. Man is thus God playing the fool. It may not be out of place to observe here that the highest power of the soulknower or Truth-knower (BRAHMAJNANI) is not the ability to amass wealth, get the whole world of nibile women, perform miracles, etc. but the ability to command the MANAS in him to assume only certain modalities of his choice, especially the one which it assumes on man's direct perception of Truth (Brahman) which is sometimes called 'ineffable bliss'. 8 Jain Education International aware of our unconscious as well as of our conscious processes, but that this second personality never, in normal states, emerges and takes control of the body' ('Limitations of science', PELICAN, 1933, p. 154). Transmigration. The subject of the JIVA dealt with above takes us to the Advaitic philosophy of metempsychosis. It may outright be observed here that it is only the JIVA, 'the empiric soul', of the individual that transmigrates on his or her death, not his or her 'atman' which is one with Truth (Brahman). The JIVA will seem to resemble a number. As number two, for instance, can fly in a flash from 'two frogs' to 'two foxes' and attach itself to the latter as easily at it did. to the former, so does the JIVA of a being fly from it on its death and attach itself to another being that is born in the universe. The nature of one's rebirth depends on one's knowledge acquired. The greater one's knowledge, the higher proportionately, is one's rebirth in the universe. As Samkara says in his commentary on the chandogya Upanishad, VI, ix, 5, 'Births are in accordance with knowledge.' Man can thus ascend to godhead, even Godhead, through knowledge-or fall to the state of even inanimate matter It may be worth while nothing here that there are thus according to Samkara-Vedanta two souls as it were in a man 'and', we hasten to add, 'a woman'-, the JIVA and the 'atman', a philosophy to which advaned modern psychology will lend a mea sure of support. As J. W. N. Sillivan says, it has been suggested by advanced modern psychology that 'in all of us there is another personality, through ignorance or indifferenccto For Personal & Private Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

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