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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
The Systems of Rāmānuja ....
531
It is a fact that the jivas are modes or modifications of the Supreme Self and the Supreme Self resides in the souls as their indwelling reality that holds them (rare) and controls and guides them from within. However, Rāmānuja does not deny freedom to these finite souls. The souls do enjoy freedom in the moral sphere and they are the determiners of their own pleasures and pains which arise in conformity with the goodness and badness of their deeds. The individual souls have the freedom to choose their actions and also the freedom to attain mukti or liberation. Though they are dependent upon isvara, they are not dummies or impotent entities; but they enjoy full freedom in the moral sphere. The individ. ual souls transmigrate so long as their Karma is not exhausted. They pass from one birth to another with the help of the subtle body which contains in it the desert or the accumulated saṁskāras of the past birth. If the soul chooses to be free from the sarasāra there is every opportunity to attain eternal redemption and to be ever free from the samsāra. As S. Radhakrishnan says "The questions of human freedom and divine sovereignty assume great importance in Rāmānuja's philosophy, since he is anxious to emphasize both. Individual souls depend entirely on God for their activity. God declares what is good and what is bad, supplies souls with bodies, gives them power to employ them, and is also the cause in an ultimate sense of the freedom and bondage of the souls .... God does not make the soul do good or evil acts according to his caprice, but shows his constancy of nature by acting according to the
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