Moksha or Liberation of Soul, the 9th Navatattva

 

Moksha or Liberation of Soul, the 9th Navatattva

The ninth or the final principle is Moksha or liberation. When the soul or atma is freed from all bondages to karma and has passed the ever beyond possibility of rebirth, it is said to have attained the state of complete deliverance or Moksha. In other words, the soul’s recovery of its own eternal self from the social bondages by the complete exhaustion or elimination of all different karmas is Moksha. When the soul is released from its karmic envelope, it realises its innate attributes of infinite knowledge, infinite perception, infinite power, infinite bliss and infinite light and ascending to the crest of the “Loka”, remains there forever. These free souls never return to the physical world again. They are truly free from the wheel of material existence made up of birth, decay and death. Ascent is the natural movement of the soul from bound state to free state, or from material world to Siddhaloka. Stripped off the covering karma, the pure soul wings move straight upwards and settles upon the highest region of the Loka, that is to say, upon the furthest frontiers of Dharmastikaya and Adharmastikaya. This state of the soul is the liberated or perfected state – this is called Moksha according to Jain theory and Nirvana according to Hinduism and Buddism. As a lamp lit in a house irradiates the whole house with its light, and if other lamps are lit, their lights too mingle with each other and remain there, so the liberated souls, which are each an effulgence, mingle with each other and remain on the crest of the Loka forever. For them, there is no return to the agony of mortal existence.

Reference:

The Heart of Jainism by Mrs. Sinclair Stevenson, 1915, Oxford University Press.

Lord Mahavira, His Life and Doctrines by Puran Chand Samsookha,1957, Publisher Jain Swetambar Terapanthi Mahasabha, Kolkata.

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