The following dialogue is taken from Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talk number 265, my additions are in red:
Questioner: There are said to be sadeha mukta (liberated in body) and videha mukta (liberated without body).
Sri Ramana Maharshi: There is no liberation, and where are muktas [the liberated ones]?
Questioner: Do not Hindu sastras [scriptures] speak of mukti [liberation]?
Sri Ramana Maharshi: Mukti is synonymous with the Self. Jivan mukti (liberation while alive) and videha mukti (liberation after the body falls) are all for the ignorant. The Jnani [liberated one] is not conscious of mukti or bandha (bondage).
Bondage, liberation and orders of mukti are all said for an ajnani [ignorant or unliberated one] in order that ignorance might be shaken off.
There is only mukti and nothing else.
The following is the taken from Vichara Shangraham, a text attributed to Sri Ramana Maharshi. Vichara Sangraham is often translated simply as ‘Self Enquiry’ and literally means ‘A compendium of (Self) Enquiry’. This excerpt is very the last section of the text:
Question: What are the characteristics of the jivan-mukta (the liberated in life) and the videha-mukta (the liberated at death)?
Sri Ramana Maharshi: ‘I am not the body; I am Brahman which is manifest as the Self. In me who am the plenary [absolute] Reality, the world consisting of bodies etc, are mere appearance, like the blue of the sky’. He who has realized the truth thus is a jivan-mukta.
Yet so long as his mind has not been resolved, there may arise some misery for him because of relation to objects on account of prarabdha (karma which has begun to fructify and whose result is the present body) [ie. due to destiny], and as the movement of mind has not ceased there will not be also the experience of bliss.
The experience of Self is possible only for the mind that has become subtle and unmoving as a result of prolonged meditation. He who is thus endowed with a mind that has become subtle, and who has the experience of the Self is called a jivan-mukta. It is the state of jivan-mukti that is referred to as the attributeless Brahman and as the Turiya.
When even the subtle mind gets resolved, and experience of self ceases, and when one is immersed in the ocean of bliss and has become one with it without any differentiated existence, one is called a videha-mukta. It is the state of videha-mukti that is referred to as the transcendent attributeless Brahman and as the transcendent Turiya. This is the final goal.
Because of the grades in misery and happiness, the released ones, the jivan-muktas and videha- muktas, may be spoken of as belonging to four categories — Brahmavid, vara, variyan and varishtha. But these distinctions are from the standpoint of the others who look at them; in reality, however, there are no distinctions in release [liberation] gained through jnana [self-knowledge].
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A Kriya Yoga Master once said: “Ignorance is the cause of suffering and attachment. Knowledge brings liberation because it dispels the darkness of ignorance. Expansion (tan) and contraction have to do with the breath and are correlated to life and death respectively. Narrowness in mind, heart and expression is the cause of suffering, while expansion in love and understanding leads to abiding peace and liberation. Breath is the external manifestation of life. In every disposition your breath changes. A normal breath is every four seconds. Extreme emotion makes you gasp or pant. Rapid breathing, at an interval of one to five every two seconds portrays strong emotion such as anger and passion, which only lead to suffering. When the duration of the breath is prolonged and expanded, inner peace and calmness can be achieved. If tan means expansion, trana means liberation, so tantra is a path to liberation through expansion or prolongation of the breath. This facilitates an amplified capacity to understand the deeper meaning of life. We can therefore say that a mind that is fast is sick. A mind that is slow is sound. And a mind that is still is Divine. Kriya Yoga pranayama teaches man to untie the chord of breath that binds our souls to the bodily cage. The soul is then released to fly and expand into the super-conscious skies of omnipresent Spirit and come back at will into the little body cage. Through the practice of pranayama or life-force control the Kriya Yogi then comes to realize that his body is not made of flesh, but of life-force condensed from the thought of God ! Kundalini energy is the universal life-force of sustenance and evolution. At the base of the spine, the sleeping beauty Shakti awaits her Lord Charming, Shiva’s kiss of Consciousness, which releases her to ascend up the spine and unite with him in holy communion at the thousand petalled lotus in the brain. Shakti-Kundalini is the bride Cinderella, the “lady of the cinders”, who when fanned by the alchemical fire of the Shiva-Shakti Kriya technique, ignites as kundalini, blazing up the chimney of the spinal sushumna to unite with her immortal Lord Shiva in the crown chakra. It is through Kriya Yoga practice that the breath enters the central channel in the spine called the Sushumna nadi. Until that happens all philosophies and spiritual talk are the mere babblings of a child...........”
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IGNORANCE ABT NON DUALITY IS MAYA - ALWAYS WORRIED OF DUALITY BRTHX DTH RAG X DWESA
THENCE JIVANMUKTI THEN VIDEHAMUKTI
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POE
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A
Does ego have to die or end for realisation to occur?
Tom: Yes, ego-mind-thought must die for realisation to occur. Those who are still attached to the body-mind-world and still take themselves to be the body say otherwise.
Ego is ignorance. Ego is duality. It is the ego that creates/projects the body-mind and world, like in a dream. When ego goes, everything goes, and all that remains is the Self. It cannot be put into words or understood by the mind. In truth ego never existed at all.
Objections to this such as ‘how does the sage function without ego’ only occur in ignorance of taking the sage to be the body and in the presense of ego-ignorance seeing body-mind-world.
The paradox of this cannot be explained in words, but when the mind becomes so completely and utterly still so that time and space and personhood all cease to exist, this ‘Self’ is somehow ‘known without knowing’.
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POE
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