Everyone longs for liberation, because bondage is not conducive to happiness. But not all persons possess the necessary courage to ask for liberation. Hence they have to undergo the tortures of bondage; they have to surrender to bondage. But while surrendering to bondage, they realize at heart that they are not doing the right thing. Thus all long for some kind of mukti [liberation] – some in terms of freedom of action, some in terms of freedom on the intellectual level. The question of liberation arises due to the tortures brought about by bondage.

We hear many a person say, “We are very ordinary people; will it ever be possible for us to attain mukti, or to attain mokśa [non-qualified liberation, emancipation]?” In my opinion, this sort of thinking is altogether defective: in fact, the pursuit of liberation is all the more necessary for a person who thinks of himself or herself as a very ordinary person.

Usually there is much dissatisfaction, much pain and worry, in the lives of ordinary microcosms. People want to get away from these bondages of dissatisfaction and pain. And in order to achieve that condition, they will have to follow the path of liberation. As they are in bondage, they will have to try to get rid of the bondage. Hence it is an imperative necessity for everyone to follow the path of liberation.

Human beings are in chains in this quinquelemental world of Máyá. What type of bondage is this? Who has brought about all these bondages? These bondages are the creation of Máyá.

Now bondages are not all alike, they are not equally harsh. Some bondages may be very harsh, hard as iron, and some relatively soft. For instance, suppose you are bound in iron chains, while another person is bound with a rope. Both of you are in bondage, but the severity of the bondage is not equal for both. The greater the bondage – the harsher the bondage – the greater the struggle that is necessary to attain freedom. A person in iron chains has to struggle harder than a person bound with a rope. Hence there are sure to be differences in the degree of intensity of the struggle, due to the differences in the degree of the bondage.

We in the quinquelemental world suffer bondage of various types – social bondage, economic bondage, the bondage of injustice, etc. But the worst bondage of all is spiritual bondage. As people struggle for liberation, they will have to struggle against all kinds of bondage.

For a person who has no food to eat, who suffers from the cold weather due to want of clothing, who is forced to live under the sky due to lack of shelter, will it ever be possible to turn to spiritual practices? How can such a hapless person think of spiritual liberation? Where there is a question of freedom from social bondages, you should struggle collectively. But in the case of psychic bondages you should struggle individually. The final stage of a person’s struggle for liberation will occur in the spiritual sphere.

Human beings are also subject to certain limitations in the world of the mind and the world of sense perceptions, and the spiritual domain remains hidden from them. The indriyas [organs, in this case sense organs] are the crude media of human feelings, but the capacity of the indriyas is very limited. The indriyas find it difficult to receive all the tanmátras [inferential waves]. Human beings’ auditory organs, for instance, fail to capture both very loud sounds and very soft sounds – because the auditory organs can function in between one specific wavelength and another specific wavelength, but not beyond that. Human beings, however, should not say that what does not come within the purview of the sense organs does not exist in the outer world.

Furthermore, the capacity of the sense organs varies between one person and another; it also varies between humans and animals. For instance, a tiger⁽¹⁾ can smell something from a distance even of a mile. Human beings do not have that sort of capacity. So in point of capacity of sense perception, there is a marked difference between human and human, and between humans and animals.

Therefore it follows that in matters of perceptive ability, humans suffer from some sort of limitation; that is, that in that sphere also they are in bondage.

Next comes the question of thought-waves or contemplation. When we engage our minds in crude thoughts, our minds lose their capacity for subtle thinking. When our minds constantly entertain animal-like thoughts, that is a sort of crude thinking. Conversely, when we think subtle ideas, our minds distance themselves from mean or petty thoughts. A person can keep his or her mind engrossed in a crude thought up to a certain limit, which limit depends upon his or her mental constitution. If a person is told to think of his pet dog for twenty-four hours, that person will surely be able to think of the dog for some time, but after that period, he or she will feel bored and start contemplating something else. It is a psychological fact that that person’s human mind will not be able to keep itself engrossed in the crude thought of a dog for a long time. Likewise, if an ordinary person is asked to contemplate subtle ideas for a long time, his or her mind will feel repulsed after some time, because his or her mind is not used to adjusting itself to subtle vibrations for a long time. Thus the human mind functions within a limited scope of actions of certain specific types and durations. Here also the mind has to function within certain limitations, certain bondages.

There is another problem also. You think of so many things, but how much of what you think can you articulate? You can express at most only a fraction of what you feel. That is, if your thoughts and feelings measure one hundred thousand parts, what you will be able to express may be one part. The capacity of expression of the [motor] indriyas is far, far less than the faculty of thinking. If a burning match touches your body somewhere, you say, “Ahhh!” When again a red hot iron is forcibly pressed against your body somewhere, you say, “Uhhh!” But was the degree of pain in the two cases really so similar? Certainly not. There was a big difference. But you cannot give proper expression to the difference through verbal articulation. So the power of expression of the indriyas is very little in comparison to the vast world of ideas and feelings. The capacity of lower animals for thinking and feeling is very meagre, so the power of expression of their organs is even less than that. But the various mental faculties of human beings are considerably developed. That part of the mental power which is related to somewhat cruder things can be expressed, but the subtler part of the mental power remains mostly unexpressed. Poets and literatteurs give expression to only a very microscopic portion of what they think. Writers and artists, through their pens and brushes, can articulate only a minor portion of their inner thoughts, feelings and emotions. This is a matter of feeling, a subject of internal realization, it is not a matter of debate and discussion. Thus the world of ideas, the world of contemplation, is circumscribed by limitations. Here also human beings are in bondage.

Then comes the spiritual sphere. The world of spirituality is far subtler than the world of intellectual ideation. The cruder aspect of the mental world comes within the power of expression of the indriyas, but the spiritual world is totally beyond the scope of externalization. The subtler the feeling, the greater the difficulty in expressing it. Ideas which are moderately subtle by nature may somehow be expressed through gestures and postures. Even subtler ideas can also for the most part be expressed. But the very subtlest ideas (spiritual ideas) cannot be expressed at all. Hence the scriptures say that Brahma will never be polluted by words. If someone asks how the concept of Brahma can be conveyed, my reply will be that Brahma can be communicated about as well as a deaf person and a dumb person can communicate with each other. Thus the spiritual world is beyond the scope of verbal externalization.

Human beings represent a mixed state of animality and divinity. We can say human beings are like a stage between water and land, that is, on the one side there is land, on the other side there is water. The path of human life extends along the subtle midline between the two. Standing on this delicate precarious line, most human beings lean towards animality: because human beings carry over the full experience of past animal life, but they do not have the experience of divine life.

Humans do not fear to tread a known path, but they always hesitate and fear to travel unknown paths. The path of divine life is unknown to humans. As they have no previous experience of divine life, they lack courage to move along that path, but once they do gather courage to move forward, they realize the greatness of that path of eternal bliss.

Sense experiences can lead the human mind toward the world of psychic ideation. The world of psychic ideation will lead the mind toward the world of cognition. And the world of cognition will ultimately merge into the world of pure spirituality. This is what is termed samádhi. Thus step by step the world of the indriyas becomes suspended in the psychic world, and the psychic world in the spiritual world. If explained in another way, sense perceptions are merged into citta, citta into ahaḿtattva, ahaḿtattva into mahattattva,⁽²⁾ and finally mahattattva into the calm and serene world of pure spirituality. This is what is called mukti. A genuine sádhaka or bhakta [devotee] should aspire for this sort of liberation.

The word bhakti [devotion] is derived from the root verb bhaj plus the suffix ktin. When all the thoughts and propensities of the human mind are exclusively channelized towards one’s Iśt́a [Supreme Goal], this is called bhakti. One should remember that only nirguńá bhakti [non-attributional devotion] is true devotion; that is, a sádhaka will not expect anything more than this from Parama Puruśa. Only by dint of this sort of devotion can a devotee attain Parama Puruśa.

You will notice that some people say, “If we attain liberation, then we will remain far away from Parama Puruśa.” One should remember that once all one’s thinking becomes merged in Parama Puruśa, the mind will become pinpointed; and when the mind becomes pinpointed, it will merge in pure spirituality. Human beings will then forget their individual identities altogether. At this stage a devotee may not want to go deep into samádhi, may want only to remain absorbed in Parama Puruśa – but since his or her thinking has merged in pure spirituality, he or she will have to merge in that waveless ocean of blissful samádhi, whether he or she wants to or not.

The spiritual aspirant should always bear in mind that to attain liberation, bhakti is indispensable. Jiṋániis [followers of the path of knowledge], even if they beat their heads against the wall, but remain devoid of devotion, will never attain liberation. Before their deaths they will realize that their so-called knowledge was only garbage, a burden that they carried. The life of a jiṋánii devoid of devotion is a veritable desert.

In the heart of a human being, karma [the path of action] is like plowing a field, jiṋána [the path of knowledge] is like sowing the field, and bhakti is like watering the growing plants. Hence one should always remember that there is no clash between devotees and liberation. Devotees are destined to get liberation whether they want it or not.

Footnotes

(1) A tiger is called in Sanskrit vyághra, derived vi – á – ghrá + d́a – meaning that it has an extraordinary capacity to smell from a long distance.

(2) Citta is the objective mind, which takes the shape of objects. Ahaḿtattva is the “I do” feeling, and mahattattva the “I exist” feeling. –Eds.