Kevala — the soul's own light.
Omniscient clarity when the last karma falls away — what Mahavira attained, and what every soul, Jains hold, is capable of.
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Samata.
The state samayika is for: an evenness in which what arrives stops being sorted into for me and against me. It is not tranquillity and not detachment from other people — the formula names friendship with all beings — and the tradition holds that a fast performed without it has achieved nothing at all.
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Vairagya — the world going flat.
It usually arrives through something specific: a death, an animal at a slaughterhouse, a wedding feast. What is described is not despair but a loss of interest, reported as relief. Nearly every account of taking diksha begins with one of these moments, and the tradition collects and retells them.
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Day four of the fast.
Fasters describe lightness, unusually sharp attention, and a cheerfulness that surprises people watching. There is nothing being atoned for — there is no one to atone to — so the state is not penitential. In the tradition's own terms the accumulated karma is physically coming off.
held by most
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The moment of asking.
Saying micchami dukkadam to someone with every reason to refuse, and having it granted. What people report is an account being closed by both sides at once. It happens on a fixed date whether or not anyone has changed, which is either the weakness of the practice or the whole point of it.
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