SOME THOUGHTS ON LIBERATION(MOKSHA)---20

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Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Loving SAI RAMs. Let us try to understand the messages for us in the Bhagavad Gita which have talk on liberation(moksha)

 

Verse 71 Chapter2

" That man attains peace, who, abandoning all desires, moves about without longing, without the sense of 'I-ness' and 'my-ness'. "

Real peace is within oneself and has to to be discovered there and not outside in the pluralistic world. One who wants to attain liberation should renounce all desires and must be without attachments or longings. The verse asserts that the intellect of such a person should be without any sense of 'I-ness' and 'my-ness'. The ego is the cause of all sense attachments and longings. This verse,in its sum total, advises us that all our suffering in the world is caused by our own egocentric misconception and consequent arrogance characterised by our ever-multiplying demands for wealth and our endless desires. On this verse Acharya Sankara has commented as follows:-

" That man of renunciation who entirely abandons all desires , goes through life contented with the bare necessities of life, who regards not as his , even those things which are needed for mere bodily existence, who is not vain of his knowledge--- such a man of steady knowledge, that man who knows Brahman, attains peace (nirvana), the end of all the misery of mundane existence(samsara). In short he becomes Brahman. " That is what is meant by Liberation. Thus, detached action, eradication of all desires and attachments in the heart and uprooting of 'I-ness' and 'My-ness' from the intellect are the key to to Liberation(Moksha).

 

 

In verse 16 of chapter 4 of the Bhagavad Gita, the Lord tells Arjuna that He would teach Arjuna about 'action'(the nature of action including inaction), knowing which he shall be

liberated from the evil of Samsara--- the wheel of birth and death. Here what the Lord is conveying to us through Arjuna is that an action, in itself, can not be considered either as good or bad. It is the motive behind it which determines the quality of the action. By knowing as to what exactly constitutes right action, Lord Krishna promises here that one can save himself from evil and thus liberate himself.

 

We shall see in the next posting as to who can be considered as 'ever-liberated'.

G.Balasubramanian