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ŚRĪMAD'S SPIRITUAL STATE AND PARADOXICAL SITUATION At this stage of his life, the seeds of two inner conflicts are sown in Śrīmad's mind which gradually develop and remain in various forms up to the end of Śrīmad's life. Śrīmad faces several dilemmas:
(1) On the one hand, he shows his preference for Jainism as the supreme religion, while on other hand, his mind is broad enough to accept non-Jain religions such as Vedāntism, Vaisnavism, etc., as alternative means of liberation. Though Śrīmad finally chooses Jainism, he tries to universalize the path of liberation by finding a common denominator among all self-seeking aspirants. For example, in his later celebrated work Ātmasiddhi he finds a meeting ground for the followers of all systems of philosophy and religion in the doctrine of atma dharma and ātma anubhuti, i.e. in the doctrine of the self and self-realization which crosses the boundary of Jain and non-Jain systems.
(2) Even after confirming Jainism to be his chosen path, however, he faces a further difficulty in the form of the inner conflict between his external status as a householder and his internal state of a monk (nirgrantha or muni). He later writes that externally he is either a vowless householder of the 4th spiritual stage or a anuvratī śrävaka, i.e. a follower of the code of conduct of a householder of the 5th spiritual stage, while his inner spiritual state is not less than that of a monk belonging to the 6th or 7th guṇasthāna. Not only that, but he also claims to be a passionless (vītarāga) and omniscient being (kevalin) in the Vedāntic sense, i.e. to have reached the state of an embodied liberated being (jīvana mukta).
One fails to understand why there should be a difference of opinion regarding the same spiritual stage of experience. Perhaps it is due to his firm belief in the received Jain dogma that Śrīmad does not openly declare that though externally he is still a householder who experiences the fruits of his deeds in previous births (prärabdha karma), he is already liberated from
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