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THE JOURNEY OF THE SOUL
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of the spiritual struggle of the tirthankaras through the various forms of existence, in the forms of lower animals and gods, till they reached perfection. But the final liberation is only possible in the human existence. It is possible only for human beings to go through the fourteen stages of spiritual development and reach the highest state of perfection called kaivalya state.29
Radhakrishanan says that it is not possible to give a positive description of the liberated soul. The state of perfection is passively described as freedom from action and desires, as a stage of utter and absolute quiescence.30 It is a state of unaffected peace, since the energy of past karma is extinguished. In this state, the soul is itself and no other. It is the perfect liberation, Zimmer says that, after its pilgrimage of innumerable existences in the various inferior stratifications, the life-monad rises to the cranial zone of the microcosmic being, purged of the weight of the subtle karmic particles that formerly held it down. Nothing can happen to it any more; for it has put aside the traits of ignorance, those heavy veils of individuality that are the precipitating causes of biographical events. In the highest stage of perfection, the individuality, the masks, the formal personal features are distilled away. "Sterilized of colouring, flavour and weight, the sublime crystals now are absolutely pure—like the drops of rain that descend from a clear sky, tasteless and emasculate."31
This is an account of the journey that a person has to make to attain perfection. These stages of the struggle for self-development are psychologically significant. It is not possible, here, to give parallels in psychological terms. Empirical psychology is concerned with the analysis of the nature and development of the empirical personality. Bahirātman can be compared to the 'me' of William James. Similarly, it is also possible to give a description of the antarātman in terms of the
l' of William James to some extent. Rational psychologists have shown the possibility of such a study. But psychology is not aware of the nature of the transcendental self, the parmātman, and the nature of the development of the empirical self through various stages to reach the highest stage of the transcendental self. Such a language is foreign to psychology as a science. But, considered from the point of view of gunasthānas, the soul is in the empirical stage, the 'me', before it cuts the karma granthi and experiences the first dawn of the vision of the truth in the fourth stage. After it gets the vision, it makes moral efforts to attain the truth in the highest perfection. From the fifth stage onwards to the stage of chandamastha moral efforts are prominent. The self in these
29 Abhidhinarvijendra, Vol. III. Gurasthāna (5). 30 Radhakrishnan (8.): Indian Philosophy, Vol. I, p. 333. 31 Zimmer (H.): Philosophies of India, Ed. by Campbell, p. 260.
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