According

PB August 2009
Spiritual Substance and Perfection in Indian Thought 41
Equally remarkable is the concept of liberation
in Vedanta. In Vedanta, moksha is not a negative
concept, but a positive state. It is true that liberation
from samsara is the end of all earthly pain,
but the end coincides with the emergence of unobstructed
bliss. This bliss is different from earthly
happiness. It is a transcendental bliss beyond all
difference and duality. Worldly happiness is fraught
with such dualities as pleasure and pain, but pure
transcendental bliss is unalloyed.
More important, this condition of bliss can be
achieved by the aspirant here and now, while still
living in this world. When the realization that this
world is maya—and therefore mithyā, devoid of
an ultimate meaning—and that Brahman alone
is real is fully integrated with one’s practical conduct,
then the person achieves liberation here and
now. This is jīvanmukti, freedom while living. A
jīvanmukta continues to live till the momentum of
his past actions remains in operation, performing
actions without any sense of obligation, dedicating
one’s actions and their fruits either to God or to
the welfare of society. Being selfless, the jīvanmukta
has no desires to be fulfilled. The process of liberation
culminates in the death of the body, and the
liberated soul does not come back to this world in
any bodily form, as the association of the self with
the body and mind is permanently severed. This is
videhamukti.
This brief account underscores the importance
accorded to the conception of spiritual substance
and liberation in each of the orthodox Indian
philosophical systems. Even though some of these
systems may not have been able to elucidate a
very satisfactory view of the self and its liberation,
due to difficulties inherent in their basic tenets,
they have nevertheless grappled hard with these
formulations.
Of the heterodox systems, it is perhaps the
Charvakas—the school of materialists—alone,
that neither accepts Vedic authority nor the reality
of God, of the self as an entity separate from the
body, or of liberation. It accords reality only to
matter. Also, it believes that our present life is the
only life we have. There is no hereafter, and death
involves total annihilation of the human personality.
The other heterodox schools—that of Jainism
and Buddhism—also do not accept the concept of
God or the authority of the Vedas. But they view
the yogic path of spiritual discipline as one that
leads to liberation.
P
(Continued from page 460)
Again, it cannot be said that, inasmuch as it
has parts, consciousness is a compound and must
share the fate of all compound entities: destruction.
That holds good in the case of material things only.
It cannot be predicated of consciousness. Do we
not see every moment of our lives that the many
thoughts, feelings, and urges bobbing up and down
in our mind are nothing but consciousness? But
do any of them die, or get destroyed? They abide
even when all discrete material things vanish into
their source—the so-called ultimate homogeneous
force or energy. We have used the word ‘part’ in
the context of consciousness, but the connotation
is not the same as in relation to a material thing.
Matter can be cut or torn, not so consciousness.
Leaving aside the basic consciousness, the active or
willing-consciousness remains the same unruffled
unmoving consciousness, in spite of its innumerable
modes and manners; it neither increases nor
decreases, and yet produces a bewildering multitude
of ideas and emotions, all the while retaining
its command over them—even as the earth remains
but earth though the shapes and sizes of earthenware
appear, change, and vanish.
To kill or destroy requires two. Consciousness
is singular, infinite in all respects, within and
beyond time and space. Who can destroy it or
make it change in a manner other than its own?
Abiding peace is attained only when this thoroughly
reasoned posture of the identity of ‘feelingconsciousness’
and ‘willing-consciousness’ has
become a permanent experience in life under all
circumstances. And this is the goal of life as well as
the paramarthika satya, ultimate Truth. P
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