Yearning for Liberation
The Bhagavata, Ramayana,
Mahabharata, Puranas, Katha Vachaks and Pundits say that saying that you must
attain Moksha is not enough. Individually, you must have within yourself a
great desire to attain that state, whatever it is, whether it is
Bhagavat-sakshatkara, Bhagavat-darshan or Moksha. Whatever that Lakshya is, you
must have a keen desire to attain it, you must feel restless without attaining
it. Otherwise, Sadhana will only be luke-warm, when done half-heartedly. Unless
there is that great intensity of yearning and intensity of longing, that great
hunger of the heart, there will not be that keen edge and intensity in Sadhana.
Therefore, they say, again and again, Mumukshutva (burning desire for
liberation).
Meera and Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
had that unbearable agony of separation from the Lord, which is called ‘Viraha
Vedana’ in Bhakti Yoga. Is your heart feeling every moment that He is your all
in all? Are you living, breathing and existing only for Him? Is that feeling
there in the heart? In Vedanta it is called Tivra Mumukshutva, the feeling that
this present state is a state of terrible bondage, unbearable bondage. How
keenly a person longs to break the bonds when he is tied? How eager is a caged
bird wanting to get free from bondage? So this must be felt by you, not merely
heard and understood in an intellectual way. When there is keen hunger, then
only will you go in search of food.
Sadhana, therefore,
presupposes that you have thought over life. You have felt the need for
something more than eating, drinking, sleeping, having some job and then
retiring and drawing pension and dying. To reach a higher goal, Sadhana must be
present in your life in the real sense. You must have a fixed higher goal, a
keen longing to attain that goal and a clear concept of that goal. Ramakrishna
Paramahamsa used to give the example of a person immersed under water and held
forcibly. The way he will struggle to come out for a gasp of fresh air, the way
he will be gasping and struggling, that is the way you should be longing to
attain your goal.
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