On Life and Liberation

Author(s): Mukesh Chhajer
Publisher: Mukesh Chhajer

Page 19

On Life and Liberation
The Time of Liberation?
In Jain literature, it is stated that a soul can attain liberation only during the 3rd and 4" ara (sub-period) of any half time cycle. In other four aras, a soul can prepare but cannot attain liberation. It is implicitly assumed here that the concept of a single time be applied to all souls in a linear, universal and absolute fashion. Jains also assert that there is no Supreme God. A soul attains the liberation purely by its self-efforts by working out its karma and there is no external agency that can prevent it. This raises a serious question: if a soul has exhausted/worked out all it karmas, let's say in the 5th ara in the Bharat-kshetra, then why is it not allowed to attain Moksha and, more importantly, who prevents it? This seems to put at odds the concepts of self-effort (purushartha) and a single absolute time. Both of them cannot be true simultaneously. One way to resolve this apparent contradiction is by understanding time from a slightly different point of view
Time denotes change or movement either on a physical or mental level. If the world were to freeze at this very moment in its every aspect, time would lose its meaning. For a liberated soul (siddha), there is no time in the ordinary sense because there is no change in its state. While we are experiencing the passage of time in terms of flow of thoughts or motion of objects, the siddhas do not experience the passage of time in the same sense since they are in a state that experiences no change, i.e., a siddha soul is a perfect soul. Therefore, the time that we
2 An earlier version of this article appeared in Jain Digest, Winter 2006