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bliss and everlasting happiness are God's rewards to those who win His favors. Sraman concept of soul and its purification were totally new to him. However, being a great scholar, as he evidently was, Prabhas came with his followers to learn from Mahavir. He asked of Mahavir several questions about soul and its liberation. Impressed by what he heard, Prabhas joined our sangh and Mahavir readily honored him as a Ganadhar. He was still learning about sadhana. That explains why he asked, "Honorable dear Gautam Swami, what was the goal of Mahavir's sadhana? Why did he have to remain so focused? What did he seek?"
I liked Ganadhar Prabhas' child-like innocence and readiness to learn. I decided to explain Sraman concepts in detail and said, "Mahavir was seeking full knowledge of his soul. In the field of knowledge the knower, the known, and the knowledge are the three different entities. For example, in a simple statement such as, 'The grass is green', we are the knower because we learned about the color of the grass. The fact that it is green is the knowledge, and the grass, the object about which we learned, is the known. In reality, the true knower is not us, but our soul. Just as we can know or learn about grass, so can we learn about the soul. That makes the soul both a knower as well a known. Mahavir's soul - the knower - was seeking the knowledge about his pure soul - the known."
Ganadhar Prabhas asked, "But, why was Bhagwan so resolute to know more about the pure soul? What do you gain from it?"
I replied, "Ganadhar Prabhas, knowing our soul is the true goal of all our sadhana. What good is sadhana if we don't know our goal? The soul is both the knower and the known. But when a sadhak's soul becomes
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