Liberation

Liberation is not an achievement by will or effort. Liberation is a discovery.

Absolute freedom and highest happiness are not something that must be obtained or achieved (Sādhya), but a condition that is natural and already present (Siddha). Bondage and misery are merely coefficients of our ignorance of this true state of affairs, and this is due to our phenomenal involvement.

There is an old story. A prince, abandoned in a jungle as a baby, is picked up by a hunter. He grows into manhood convinced that he is the hunter’s son. Then someone reveals to him that he is, in actuality, a prince. When the boy discovers his true identity, he cannot be said to have become the prince, for he never had ceased to be one — he was always a prince.

Similarly, realization is really the shaking off of one’s mistaken notions. This is the perfect insight (Samyagdarśana), a matter of highest knowledge. Knowledge is the removal of ignorance and nothing more.

Liberation is therefore described as the undoing of nescience. It is not the attainment of a new state of being, a transformation, a modification, or an effect. It is merely the discovery of a condition that was always there, inalienably.

An example can be taken from health. When a person’s disease is cured, health is not a new condition that has been achieved — it is simply the restitution of the natural or normal condition. It is the disease that is in the nature of deviation or disturbance of this natural state. Whatever disturbance is felt, it is only apparent and essentially unreal.

In a real sense, there is no difference in the self in the two states of bondage and liberation. The scriptures may ask us to put forth all our will and effort in the direction of liberation; they have a purpose to fulfil only in the case of a “bound” person. When one is liberated, scriptures lose their relevance and utility.

Accordingly, the talk of enlightenment and the effort towards enlightenment have relevance only at the phenomenal level — and that is the level at which we all operate.

Liberation does not alter facts; it does not bring about a change in the world, nor does it even free us of our commitments to others around us.