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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
576
Atman and Moksa
and that who is worshipped and served (erau), just as a king (rāja) is served by his servants. That which serves is definitely different from that which is served', and this relation continues even in Moksa. Though the jiva is different from the Ātman or the Supreme Self both are equally real; no one is real at the cost of the other. Every soul is different from another soul (jiva) in virtue of the differences of its experiences of pleasure and pain, knowledge, love, hatred. A jiva is not, therefore, an ephemeral entity, but it is eternal; it persists in spite of its external changes; it is that which transmigrates from one birth to another birth to experience the rewards of its past karmas. It recollects its past experiences. The jiva is, therefore, the knower, the sentient subject of the cognitions and other experiences that it obtains by coming into contact with the external world by means of its sense organs and motor organs. It is evident to oneself as ego. Every jīva is different from other jīvas in so far as it has its own unique experience in virtue of its unique dispositions which are never common or the same for two souls.
The jiva possesses the freedom of choice and the freedom of action but that freedom of action (kartstva-eira) also is not enjoyed by the jīva unqualifiedly, unconditionally and absolutely. Though the jiva is possessed of the power to act (kartstva. s'akti) it is not its entire possession (jivadhina-fan
1 Sarvadars'anasangraha, p. 135. परमेश्वरो जीवाद्भिनः, तं प्रति सेव्यत्वात् ।
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