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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
648
Ātmap and Moksa
and therefore, those things appear to them true. But in the final state of liberation by means of knowledge nescience is removed and one reaches bhakti or devotion, which is beyond all the visible ways and which consists in the union of the Brahman with itself. Devotion is nothing else but the realisation of the natural state of Brahman (sa hajasthiti-heaffala) itself.' Jhanes'vara most eloquently describes such a state of identity (advaita) and says that in the final state of liberation when the Brahman alone exists everywhere and becomes all, all relations come to an end. In this state, only the Ātman that is free from illusion exists and it is beyond duality and non-duality. Just as salt remains with water by dissolving in it, camphor, after burning disappears along with fire that burns it, and what remains behind is something third, which is only space, similarly all the differences of 'I', 'he', and this' dissolve and amalgamate together into the unique joy of the Brahman."
Jñanes'vara recognises also the possibility of Jivanmukta who is a living liberated soul. “The Saint has refused to identify himself with the body, and therefore, he feels no pangs of separation from it when he wants to throw it away; nor does it follow that he reaches Me only after he has thrown off his mortal coil; for he has been already during his life merged in My Being ....By having been one with Me in life, after death he also becomes
1 Jñanes'vari, XVIII · 1113–1129. 2 Ibid. XVIII · 1208-1210.
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