In Exploration of the Ultimate Truth

On our planet Earth (called Bharat Kshetra in Jainism) life has existed from -∞ to + ∞ (aka forever). We have had infinite time cycles here, each cycle being divided into 6 parts. Each part or sub-division is called Ara . Every Ara has unique characteristics, in terms of duration, age of people, height of people, their happiness, resources, habits, food, religion, lifestyle etc We are currently in the 5th Ara of the descending part of current time cycle. The 4th Ara ended approximately 3 years and 8 months after Lord Mahavira's Nirvana. Other than Lord Adinatha, all other Tirthankars lived in the 4th Ara (Lord Rishabhdev was born towards the end of 3rd Ara).  Am depicting a chart below to comprehend the same. Time cycle runs from 1st Ara to 6th Ara (currently we are in 5th Ara of Avasaripini Kaal or the descending cycle) and then from 6th back to 1st Ara in reverse order.  The six parts of time cycle are depicted above. We are roughly 2,543 years into the 5th Ara of Avasa...

Jain cosmology tells us about " 15 special planets" . Human beings living on only these planets can attain salvation or moksha. Our Earth is one of them. However there are time cycles on 10 of these 15 planets and only during special phases of that time cycle can salvation be attained. At this juncture we have moved into 5th part of the time cycle on Earth and salvation or direct moksha from here is not possible. Roughly after another 81,000 years humans can again start achieving Moksha from our planet Earth! We will dig in this more when we talk about time cycles. (Note: There exists a path to attain Moksha for our souls earlier than this too, so keep working on principles of Ahimsa, we will discuss more in later blogs on this) In this blog, we will discuss Madhya Lok (middle part of entire universe) , planets with human life and more. Let me start with our planet and go in reverse order. We live on Earth (or the Bharat Kshetra as it is called as per Jain Aagams), which is...