On Life and Liberation

Author(s): Mukesh Chhajer
Publisher: Mukesh Chhajer

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On Life and Liberation
by the constantly changing circumstances of life and unable to find reasons for such changes in its immediate environment and actions, starts wondering about the purpose of life. These explorations begin when we are unable to explain the circumstances of our lives by simplistic arguments and immediate events. At this point, we are forced to distance ourselves a little bit from our circumstance and that is when the questions about life and death, and reason for such events arise. During a human life, almost every individual whether an ordinary human or a Mahavir or Buddha goes through these periods of happiness and sorrow; however, each person goes through these periods at different times. Even if two persons have exactly the same material conditions, their mental attitude may be quite different. For example, two persons win a lottery and share the prize equally. First person is happy that he has won a good sum of money. However, the other person is unhappy that he did not win the whole prize and had to share the prize with another person. The same external condition did not produce the same effect on two different persons, i.e., they are at different personal time even though being at the same external time. Therefore, while the universal time cycle, in general, is applicable to the entire universe as a whole, a similar individual cycle applies to each jiva. The individual cycle may or may not match with the universal cycle.
Another question that needs answer here is, if liberation were to be attained only in the 3rd and 4th ara of the universal time then who sits at the gates of Moksha to prevent the entry of a perfect and completely purified soul in the siddhaloka? If the passage of time were to be so absolute and if the Moksha can be attained only during the 3rd and 4th ara, then there has to be some entity which keeps track of the passage of time and allows a soul to enter Moksha during that period only and keeps the gates closed at all other times even if a qualified soul reaches its
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