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According to Jain beliefs, the universe was never created, nor will it ever cease to exist. Time is divided into Utsarpinis (Progressive Time Cycle) and Avsarpinis (Regressive Time Cycle). An Utsarpini and a Avsarpini constitute one Time Cycle (Kalchakra). Every Utsarpini and Avsarpini is divided into six unequal periods known as Aras. During the Utsarpini half cycle, ethics, progress, happiness, strength, age, body, religion, etc., go from the worst conditions to the best. During the Avsarpini half-cycle, these notions deteriorate from the best to the worst. Jains believe we are currently in the fifth Ara of the Avsarpini phase, with approximately 19,000 years until the next Ara. After this Avsarpini phase, the Utsarpini phase will begin, continuing the infinite repetition of the Kalchakra.

When this cycle reaches its lowest level (in the current half-cycle: the sixth Ara), Jainism, as well as all religions, will be lost entirely. During this time, all humans will be sinners with short life spans, ugly appearances, and no sense of ethics. Due to this, all individuals during this time will be born in Hell. The world will be a rotting wasteland with little food or water. Then, on the next upswing (start of the Utsarpini half-cycle), the Jain religion will be revived and reintroduced by new Tirthankars (literally "Crossing Makers" or "Ford Finders"), only to be lost again at the end of the next downswing.

Jains also believe that at the upswing of each time cycle, people will lose religion again. All things people want will be given by wish-granting trees, and all people will be born in sets of twins with one boy and one girl who live with each other for the rest of their lives.

The first Tirthankar of this era was Lord Rishabh Dev. In our ara, the twenty-third Tirthankar was an ascetic teacher named Parshva, whose traditional birth and death years are set at 877-777 B.C.E., i.e., 250 years before the liberation of the last Tirthankar, Lord Mahavir, in 527 B.C.E. Jains regard all Tirthankars as reformers who called for a return to beliefs and practices in accord with the eternal universal philosophy upon which the faith is based. The title Bhagavan ("Lord"), applied to Mahavir and all other Tirthankars, means Venerable.

Bhaktamara Stotra: ATirthankara is a shelter from ocean of rebirths

The twenty-fourth and final Tirthankar of this Avsarpini was named Vardhaman but was called Mahāvīr, the Great Hero (599-527 B.C.E.). A wandering ascetic teacher, he recalled Jains to the rigorous practice of their ancient faith.

Jains believe that reality consists of two eternal principles, jiva and ajiva. Jiva consists of infinite identical spiritual units (life); while ajiva (non-jiva) is matter in any form or condition: time, space, rest, matter and energy, and movement. These five, together with Jiva, are known as the Six Substances. Matter and energy were known by Jains to have been interchangeable long before Albert Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity.

Both jiva and ajiva are considered eternal; they are never born or created for the first time and will never cease to exist. Much of the world is made up of jiva trapped in ajiva; there are jivas in rocks, plants, insects, animals, human beings, spirits, etc.

Any contact between jiva and ajiva causes the former to suffer, and Jains believe that worldly existence inevitably entails some suffering. Neither social nor individual reform can totally stop suffering. Every organism, including humans, has jiva and suffers because of its contact with ajiva. To avoid suffering, jiva must leave the four gatis (stages) of Human Life, Heavenly Bodies, Plants/Animals/Insects/Fish Life, and Hell, while remembering the ultimate aim of liberation.

Karma and transmigration keep jiva in contact with ajiva. Liberation from the human condition is difficult. Jiva suffers during its infinite reincarnations. Jains believe that every action, good or evil, opens up sense channels (sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell), through which karma adheres to the jiva within, affecting its body, obscuring the mind and senses, and determining the conditions of its next reincarnation.

The consequence of evil actions is negative karma (Pap), which weighs the jiva down, forcing it to continue reincarnating at low levels. Good deeds lead to positive karma (Punya), allowing jiva to rise higher in its next life with less suffering. However, good deeds alone can never lead to liberation, as liberation requires for there to be no karma, not even Punya, bonded to the soul. As the soul becomes more and more advanced, it progresses through fourteen steps to liberation called Gunasthanaks.

The fylfot (a.k.a. swastika) is among the holiest of Jain symbols. Worshippers use rice grains to create fylfot around the temple altar.

The way to moksha (release or liberation) is believed to be withdrawal from the world. Karma means cause-and-effect and hence every action has consequences which can only be escaped by penance, or Tapascharya. All Karmas, good or bad, must be shed to attain moksha, since all Karma, good or bad, has consequences and keeps jiva chained in endless reincarnations which lead to suffering to a greater or lesser extent. Liberation warrants prevention and eradication of new karma.

At the end of his or her life, a liberated soul (in the Jain belief, a Siddha), with no karma to weigh it, will rise free of ajiva, free of the human condition and of all future embodiments. Jain doctrine states that it will rise to the highest place in the universe, Siddhashila, where jiva, identical with all other pure jivas, will experience its own true nature in eternal stillness, aloneness, liberation and eternal bliss. The way to discard karma is to withdraw from worldly involvement and close the senses and the mind to prevent karma. Such eternal liberation frees Jiva from Pudgala (matter) so that no new reincarnation occurs. Thus one attains moksha or the final liberation. Ignorance (mithyātva) causes attachment, while true knowledge (Kevalgnān) leads to liberation. Jains believe that moksha is possible for humans in the third and fourth Aras of every Utsurpini and Avsarpini.