The Causal Law as a Limitation
When you say 'we want moksha – Liberation', liberation
from what? Where is the bondage? Can anyone of us say where lies the bondage?
Has God created bondage? We all go on saying that God created the world. If God
created the world, he must have created the bondage of the world also. If God
cannot be attributed to have created bondage, then who else created bondage? We
would not ourselves create bondage of our own selves. As this question cannot
easily be answered, one cannot also easily know what Moksha is. The erroneous notion
enveloping our existence is such that whatever we touch creates a difficulty
for us:
Sarvarambha hi doshena dhumenagnirivavritah. (Bhagavad
Gita 18.48)
"Anything
that one does produces a cloud of reaction; It will not bring
satisfaction!"
Actually, liberation means
liberation from the notion of cause and effect, that something comes from
something. As the mind is involved in the web of causal law, who will liberate
the mind from the network of 'cause and effect'? This is why Jnana Yoga path is considered
difficult. It is like trying to melt down one's own personality.
The three Acharyas – Sankara,
Ramanuja and Madhva – have their own definitions of liberation. 'You become
one; – that is liberation. Now, what is the meaning of becoming one with
another thing? When water is mixed with milk, the two join together and become
one substance as it were; you cannot see water separately sitting in the milk,
yet water is not milk. The existence of the water is merged in the existence of
the milk, notwithstanding the fact that one is different from the other.
Ramanuja's view is some such thing; You may feel you are one with God as water
may feel it is one with milk or milk may feel that it is one with water, but
they are different; though for certain purposes, they look like one. The
intimate relationship between God and the soul is such that one may feel it is
the same as the other, though it is not. Ramanuja's conclusion is that the soul
does not get identified with God, just as milk and water do not identify
themselves with each other.
Madhva's view of liberation is
like loss of individuality which is possible by getting mixed up with other
individualities. Say, there are grains of rice and grains of sesame (til), – if sesame seeds and rice
seeds are mixed together, each seed may think that it has lost its individual
existence by communicating itself with other seeds – til with rice and rice with til. This is Madhva's idea of 'union'
with Reality, but yet til cannot become
rice; rice is quite different from til. In the case
of milk and water at least, there is an appearance of identity but in til and rice, there is no such
question at all. Here is the difference between Ramanuja's opinion about moksha, and Madhva's.
But in the case of Sankara, moksha is like 'water mixing with
water'; It is total oneness. If hundred drops of water unite themselves, they
become one drop only. But, mixing up one hundred rupee coins together would not
convert them into one big rupee – they remain one hundred only. But here in the
case of water, it is not like that. Any number of drops of water mixed together
will become just one big drop. Finally it can become one huge drop like the
ocean. This is Sankaracharya's standpoint, basically.
What does Brahma Sutra say? It
does not say clearly anything! There are indications that all the three are
correct from different points of view. The Upanishads have passages
corroborating all these views.
Whether something exists
really or not is not important. Does the consciousness believe that something
is existing, or not, is what is important. Bondage is the belief of
consciousness in the existence of certain factors which are binding. 'The world
is binding; all people are sources of trouble and limitation' – this notion of
the individual has to be overcome in order that the 'trouble-creating' elements
may depart from the soul that is troubled, which is possible if the individual
cuts itself off from the causal world completely or identifies itself with the
world totally. The individual cannot cut itself off from the world as it is a
part of the world; the only way is to unite itself with the world. The first
attempt is ostensibly dangerous and unpractical. The second is laudable, and is
the proper way of self-integration.
Excerpts from:
The Causal Law as a Limitation – Chapter 9 An Analysis of
the Brahma Sutra by Swami KrishnanandaArchives - Blog
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