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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
The Upanişads
83
entering into an everlasting identity with the eternal, all-pervasive conscient Self which is the essence (m:adhu) of existence. This liberation can be attained only by actually experiencing oneness with the reality; by experiencing the truth of "all this is Brahman" and "I am the Brahman". The liberated soul becomes free for ever from the recurrence of births and deaths; his ignorance is destroyed and the karma, because of which he has to revolve on the wheel of birth and death, comes to an end. As long as the stock of Karma is not exhausted, nobody can attain liberation. But the Upanişads hold that the Kurma can be burnt by the fire of knowledge and hence, the acquisition of the knowledge of the Brahman, frees an individual from his bondage to the samsāra. It is repeatedly said in the Upanisads that by the vision of the One ātman, by overcoming the distinctions (alat) one attains perfection and immortality; and at last it comes to this —"One who knows Brahman, becomes Brahman." That means one enters into identity with the Brahman which is also the Ātman. To be the Brahman means to possess all the characteristics of Brahman, which are-eternity, immortality, blissfulness, consciousness, incorporeality, infinity and tranquillity, purity, freedom and luminosity. The individual acquires all these attributes and enjoys the ultimate state of liberation. Here liberation does not consist in becoming like the Brahman but in becoming one with the Brahman by experiencing it as the Ātman - the innermost Self of the individual.
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