Thought 163: Part 4 – Moksha

As long as a person focuses his mind on the outer world and its attractions, he continues to experience anxiety, agony, sorrow, frustration, anger, hatred, etc, constantly, all the time. Unless the person continues to experience misery of this type for a long, long, time, spanning over a number of Janmas (births), he does not realize that what the outer world has to offer to him is not worth all this misery. A point will then come in his life when he gets completely disenchanted - and it is only then, does he change his focus from the world outside to the world inside. It is only at this stage that he turns his attention to the spiritual goal, which is the last Purushaardha, called Moksha.

People generally think that Moksha is a place like heaven or Vaikuntha or Kailaasa. A few years ago, my wife, Sithadevi, happened to meet with a (self styled) spiritualist at a friend’s house in Ottawa, Canada. During the conversation, he mentioned the term “Moksha”. My wife Sithadevi asked him “what is Moksha, sir”. He pointed his right hand forefinger upwards – implying thereby that it is a place up above - like heaven!

Moksha is not a place at all. Moksha is Aatma Jnanam (the knowledge of the self). When you are ignorant, you think that you are the body-mind complex. If you think that you are the body, the body is going to die one day - and therefore, you die. When you die, you are going to be born again – and even in this new Janma (birth or incarnation), you will die again. Thus, you face death in every Janma (birth or incarnation).

Death causes fear – intense fear. You do not want to die. You want to escape death some how, but you also know that you cannot. Death is inevitable and inescapable – for everything that is born in the space-time dimension. In fact, death is the only certain thing in life on this planet.

When the self-knowledge unfolds in you, you realize that you are not your body-mind complex – but you are the Aatma (Awareness), which has no death – or even birth. This realization is called self-realization (self-knowledge), which is Moksha.

The next thought is about “Dharma protects and Adharma punishes”