Miscellaneous - Religion   

Desire for liberation

CHENNAI: As the scriptures are the ultimate authority on the Absolute Reality (Brahman), an individual desirous of liberation has to undertake study of the texts under a competent Guru. Just as a student of any discipline has to possess certain criteria to get admission for pursuing formal education, so also, there are four prerequisites that have to be met by a spiritual seeker for embarking on Vedantic study to realise the goal of Self-realisation. They are discrimination between the ephemeral and the eternal; detachment towards all that are transient in nature (the world); possession of the six disciplines namely mind control, sensory control, non-dependence of the mind on anything external, endurance of the vicissitudes of life without complaining, faith in the words of the Guru, and concentration on the goal; and finally intense desire for liberation.

In his discourse Sri Goda Venketeswara Sastri said Sankara had classified the desire for liberation in his work Vivekachudamani depending on its intensity as inferior, middling and well-developed. An individual can develop yearning for liberation as a result of listening to the exposition of Vedanta texts and this is said to be inferior as it is still the beginning stage. If as a result of constant listening to Vedanta, the person develops discrimination of mind understanding the futility of worldly life, which is a mix of joys and sorrows leading to rebirths, the seeker has progressed to the middle stage. The advanced stage is the one in which the seeker develops total detachment towards the world with the conviction that only liberation from transmigration would give him eternal bliss.

In this context Sankara assures that even though the desire for liberation may be of the first two levels, if the spiritual aspirant strives sincerely for detachment by cultivating the six disciplines his effort will bear fruit by the grace of the Guru. On the other hand, if a seeker’s detachment and desire for liberation are dull, then the practice of the six disciplines will tantamount to a thirsty man’s disappointment of not finding water after walking towards a mirage in a desert. Thus all the prerequisites must go hand in hand to attain liberation.

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