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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
630
Ātman and Moksa
sentient principle. Everything is Ātman or the Brahman which is beyond the three attributes, and which is devoid of any particular nature. It is beyond all duality, and hence, beyond all relativity. The jiva or soul is inseparable from the Brahman. It is identical with Ātman in a particular way. In this respect he believes in bhedābhedavāda (#TACAT) or in the theory of difference and non-difference as true simultaneously. The Jiva is one with the Brahman or the Supreme Self (Ātman) just as a ripple (tarangaAF) is one with the ocean and still different from it. Jiva is one with the Brahman as the rays of the sun are one with the sun. He also resorts to reflectionism and compares the jiva to a reflection of the sun in water, the reflection being subject to changes, while the Ātman that is reflected is immutable. Ātman is not affected by the various experiences of pleasure and pain of the jivas.
Jñänes'vara says in his Amrtānubhava that the world is neither caused by māyā nor by ajñāna (nescience), but it is a spontaneous expression of the Brahman by itself. He denies the vivartavāda and contends that the world is one with the Brahman; everything in the world is a sportive expression of the Brahman. He calls it also the 'Sphūrtimatra' ( F H ) a spontaneous and unmotivated expression of the Brahman. This theory is also known as
Sphūrtivāda' (exfårare). When there arises a desire in the Supreme Ātman to see Himself, He Himself becomes the manifold world, an object to Himself, and thus comes to see Himself as the visible .world.
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