Spiritual Enlightenment

Author(s): Yogindu Deva, A N Upadhye
Publisher: Radiant Publishers

Page 53

39
Paramatma Prakash Commentary
10). The association of Karmas has no beginning, and all the while heavy Karmas are leading the soul astray (I. 59, 78). Developing false attitudes the soul incurs Karmic bondage and wanders in Samsara always feeding itself on false notions of reality (I. 77, etc.). It is the Karman that creates various limitations for the soul and brings about pleasures and pain (I. 63, etc.). Moksha, Nirvana or liberation consists in getting released from the Karmas, both meritorious an demeritorious (II. 63). The souls that have attained liberation dwell in the abode of Siddhas at the top of the world (II. 6, 46, etc.). Moksha is the seat of happiness wherein the liberated soul possesses all-vision, all-knowledge, etc.; and it is the best object of pursuit II. 3, 9-11, etc.). Samsara is destroyed by the vision of Paramatman and Nirvana attained; so the mind should always be set on Atman who is potentially (shaktirupena) Paramatman (II. 33, I. 32, I. 26, see also I. 123*3). One must rise above attachment and aversion and be engrossed in one's self to stop the influx of Karmas (II. 38, 100, 141, etc.). Penance is quite necessary to destroy the Karmas (II. 36.).
Explanatory remarks: Samsara and Moksha are the two conditions of the Atman, and they are opposed to each other in character: Samsara represents unending births and deaths, while Moksha is the negation of the same. In the former state the soul being already in the clutches of Karman is amenable to passional and other disturbances; and there is constant influx and bondage of Karman which makes the soul wander in different grades of existence, namely, hellish, sub-human, human and heavenly. As opposed to this there is Moksha, sometimes called the fifth state of existence, which is reached by the soul, passing through the fourteen stages of Gunasthanas, when all the Karmas are destroyed. In Samsara the various Karmas were obscuring the different potent powers of the self; these powers are manifested in liberation where the Atman, now called Paramatman, dwells all by himself endowed with infinite vision, knowledge, bliss and power.