There is a “three-jewel” path leading to moksha: right belief, right knowledge, and right conduct. Included in those jewels are five essential laws and abstinences:
- nonviolence, called ahimsa
- truthfulness, called satya
- chastity, called brahmacarya (total celibacy for the Jain monks and nuns, total chastity outside one’s marriage for the laity)
- abstinence from stealing, called asteya
- abstinence from greed/materialism, called aparigraha
Jainism essentially perceives time as a full circle, or two connected half circles or cycles. Very basically, picture a clock. The Utsarpinis, or Progressive Time Cycle, would correspond to the hours between 6:00 and 12:00, when humankind evolves from its worst to its best. The closer to 12:00 the cycle progresses, the happier, healthier, stronger, more ethical, and more spiritual we become. Then, from 12:00 back to 6:00, the Avsarpinis, or Regressive Time Cycle, takes over, the inevitable descent from our best to our worst. The whole circle is divided into six Aras, or periods of unequal length. According to Jainism, we’re currently in the fifth Ara of the Avsarpini or Regressive phase, a gradual deterioration of human values and spiritualism, with almost twenty millennia to go before the Utsarpini /Progressive phase begins again.
With this cyclical approach to life, it makes complete sense that the Jains believe the universe was uncreated and that it, and the souls ( jivas) that dwell in it, last for eternity—until and unless they make their way to the heaven of moksha. Their view of the end of days, then, would be cause for celebration, since it would involve nothing more and nothing less than the liberation of the soul/jiva from the perpetual cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, filled with pain and karmic repercussions, and the ultimate achievement of Jainism: an eternity of bliss in moksha.
An illustration of the interaction of the principles of Jainism and its variation on each individual’s “end of days” is offered in a refreshingly simple little story:
A man crafts a small wooden boat to take him from one side of a great river to the other. (The man represents jiva, or the soul, while the boat represents nonliving things, called ajiva.)
He’s under way in his journey when the boat begins to leak. (The rushing in of water represents the deluge of karma on the soul, or asrava, and the water’s accumulation in the boat is the threatening bondage of karma, called bandha.) The man promptly plugs the leak and begins bailing the water out of his boat. (The plug represents putting a stop to the onrush of karma, called samvara, and getting rid of the water is the casting aside of karma, known as nirjara.)
Successful in his efforts, the man crosses the river and safely reaches his destination, moksha, the freedom and bliss of eternal salvation.
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