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EPILOGUE
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is waiting only to be realised. One has but to arise, awake and free himself from the hypnotism of weakness, from ignorance and delusion, assert oneself and proclaim the God within him. He has to realise that he is not matter, is not a body, but a spirit free, which is not the slave of matter, rather it can make matter its most obedient servant.
With this realisation of the self, of its infinite possibility and capacity to become great and good, the aspirant launches on a course of self-discipline and self-purification. His sincere efforts at once begin to bear fruit and ultimately enable him to attain liberation which means freedom, absolute freedom from the bondage of good as well as from the bondage of evil, because a golden chain is as much a chain as an iron one. The acme or pinnacle of spiritual glory consists in perfect vītarāgatā absolute purity from all emotions, passions, and distinctions of merit and demerit, good and evil. And the Path, practised and preached by the Tīrthankaras, who themselves thereby attained that goal, is sure to lead others thither.
What is needed is a clear intellectual perception of the essential nature, present condition and potentialities of the self, and an unflinching conviction and faith in it, together with a persistent, practical pursuit of the goal in our daily life, which and which alone can keep us true to the centre of Truth.
As the late J.L. Jaini, an erudite thinker, so ably put, “No verbal jugglery, no pious deception of self or others will save one from error and harm if this central Truth is lost sight of. All Politics, Ethics, Laws and Economics will be engulfed in stygian, chaotic darkness, if once the human mind, the soul, loses or loosens grip of this First Fact of Life. On the other hand, if this beacon of light is kept in view, nothing in the world can delude us long or deep. Our joys and sorrows, our successes and failures, our illness and health, births and deaths of relations and friends, victory and defeat, prosperity
