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80 : Śramaņa, Vol 61, No. 3 July-September 10
transitory objects and consequently suffers. So the answer lies in turning our back to the finite and directing our love to the Infinite and feeling His presence every moment. Thus, surrender is the essential spirit of 'Bhakti. It is a way to overcome the problem of egoity, the spirit of worldliness. Thus the path of Bhakti does not negate the 'Ego', but transforms it. All the schools if 'Bhakti in India share this view and a dialogue with the religions of Semitic origin is not difficult to be established on this basis.
The 'path of 'knowledge' as taught in Advaita Vedānta is primarily aimed at overcoming the problem of separateness and particularity generated by the 'ego'. It teaches to shake off our exclusiveness and gives deeper meaning to life to find the 'universal Self, that is our real 'Self. In other words, it is a way, of broadening or expanding our notion of 'Self. By realizing our 'Universality' and 'Infinity', we can overcome the problem of duality, fear and loss of peace, caused by ignorance of the 'Self.
If the path of Bhakti is path of transforming the 'Ego' and the path of 'Jñāna', the path of expansion, then the Buddhist path of knowledge may be termed as the "path of explosion of the particularity or individuality" according to prof. R. K. Tripathi. Our egoism rests on the belief that we are something durable, if not also imperishable; while the fact is that we are nothing more than a momentary conglomeration of momentary 'Dharmas'. Once we come to realize this, the citadel of our 'Ego' is exploded and vanishes into thin air, there remains nothing which we can call "I" or "Mine".
There is yet another understanding of the Jainas, who have seen the genesis of suffering in the insistence and intensity of 'Ego'. Their answer to this problem of our prejudices lies in the doctrine of the manifold nature of reality (Anekāntavāda) and the theory of the relativity of knowledge (Syādvāda). According; to this theory, reality has infinite aspects which are relative we can know only some of these aspects. All our judgments therefore are necessarily
