SOME THOUGHTS ON MOKSHA--16

July 19, 2009

Hari Om It is now time to look into what Lord Krishna says about Moksha in the Gita.

Sloka 51 of Chapter 2

"The wise, possessed of knowledge, having abandoned the fruits of action and freed from the fetters of birth, go to the state which is beyond all evil (janma bandha vinirMuktaah padam gachhanti anaamayam)."

Those who know the art of living undertake all work, maintaining in themselves the full evenness of mind, and thus ababndon all anxieties for the fruits of their actions. An entity who works or acts renouncing both ego and ego-motivated desires is considered as wise in the Gita. Identifying with the agitations of the mind, the ego is born, and the ego so born gets riddled with desires as it gets anxious over the fruits of its actions. If one works with neither ego nor desires, one gets one`s

vasana-- purgation. It is the mental-impressions in us that shoot the subtle body or the anthahkarana from oone embodiment to another, and when the existing vasanas have ended i.e., when we get completely relieved from both the ego and the ego-prompted desires, that entity can no longer have any occasion to take another embodiment. An individual minus his ego is the Self

(Atma) and , therefore, a Karma Yogi, rid of the ego may reach, theoretically at least, the state beyond all sorrows. Mere karma, however, noble and perfect it may be, can not give us Self-Realization. Bhagavan Sankaracharya , in his famous

Vivekachoodamani, states, " Let erudite scholars quote all scripture, let gods be invoked through sacrifices, let elaborate rituals be performed, let personal gods be propitiated.......yet, without the experience of one`s identity with the Self, there shall be NO LIBERATION for the individua, not even in the lifetime of a hundred BRAHMAs put together", which according to Hindu mythology is equivalent to 311,040,000,000,000 years!! Acharya Sankara further asserts,"It is clear that LIBERATION can not be the effect of good works, for Struti herself declares that there is no hope for immortality by means of wealth"(na dhanena amritatvam aasuh). Thus selfless service (seva) alone is not sufficient for achieving Liberation

(Moksha). Selfless actions purify the mind and prepare the individual for higher meditations through which ultimately he discovers himself to the Self,'which lies beyond all evil'. Incidentally, the "immortality" promised by the

Srutis is not a state or condition that comes to us after our departure from this world. It is a perfection that can be lived here and now.

(to be continued)

G.Balasubramanian