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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
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Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
Jainism
261
satisfaction of their senses because they have withdrawn them. They bear an equanimous attitude towards all and treat all with compassion, love and serenity. Their minds are completely purged of sinful and selfish thoughts. They go beyond all finitude as they have realized the infinite nature of the soul. They enjoy highest bliss and are possessed of all knowledge. As Dasgupta points out —".... the state of mukti is the state of the soul in pure happiness. It is also a state of pure and infinite knowledge (anantajñāna) and infinite perception (anantadars'ana) .. .. In the state of release however, there is omniscience (Kevala-jñāna 56 ) and all things are simultaneously known to the perfect ( Kevalin) as they are. In the samsāra stage the soul always acquires new qualities, and thus suffers a continual change though remaining the same in substance. But in the emancipated state the changes that a soul suffers are all exactly the same, and thus, it is that at this stage the soul appears to be the same in substance as well as in its qualities of infinite knowledge, etc., the change meaning in this state only the repetition of the same qualities." Nahar explains it most appropriately – “Thus we see a reality, the soul has no beginning nor end; but viewed with the light of its own states or grades of existence, it has a beginning and an end, and herein lies the reason why the soul is stated to be both with and without form. So long as it has to go round and round through the repetition
of births and deaths it has a form. But viewed with : Dasgupta S. ; A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1,
p. 207.
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