Bhagavagd Gita - Session 25- Track 2505

I will read again this last sentence because it is the most important sentence: when can you say that you have the experience of Moksha? When ‘this’ happens, namely: “What we mean by this is simply that our sense of separate existence disappears into a consciousness of illimitable, undivided, infinite being in which we no longer feel bound to the name and form and the particular mental and physical determinations of our present birth and becoming and are no longer separate from anything and anyone in the universe.”

This sentence requires to be studied in depths again and again, because so much is packed in this sentence. Let us analyse three things in this: first of all there is a disappearance of separate existence: there is no Moksha as long as there is a sense of separate existence. In other words as long as ego sense remains there is no Moksha. Sense of separate existence is the sense of ego. So, in Moksha the egoistic consciousness disappears. Then there is at the same time a consciousness of illimitable, undivided, infinite being; there is an experience of a being that is illimitable, undivided, and infinite; without this experience there is no Moksha: even if you see that you are not separate from others, but if you don’t experience this, there is no Moksha. Then, we no longer feel bound: this is the third experience. We no longer feel bound to the name and form: “I am “x”, by this name; I am this body, this form and I have got this character, and I have got this mentality.” None of these things remains valid to you; you are no more experiencing: “I am this body, or I am confine to this body”. As long as you feel that you are this body, you are identified with it, there is no Moksha. When there is a real Moksha, you do not feel that you are in this body, that you are this body. Even if you feel that there is a body here, it is like an appendage to you.

Latter on Sri Krishna will say that with regard to Apara Prakriti, you do not experience that you are in it. Apara Prakriti is in the Supreme, but the Supreme is not in it. The body may be in your spirit, but you are not in the body: it is ‘this’ experience. We no longer feel bound to the name and form and the particular mental and physical determinations of our present birth and becoming. And we are no longer separate from anything or anyone in the universe. These are three things that we experience: no separation from anyone, we experience the illimitable being and we feel that this body, this name, this mentality, which is the result of our present birth, is not ourselves.

This was what the ancient thing was called: the non-birth. If you read the Isha Upanishad, there was a word, which was ‘asambhūti’ (Isha Upn. 12): sambhūti is “taking birth”; asambhūti is “non-birth”. This is really the meaning of Nirvana. When you feel that you are no more in this body; when you feel infinite being; and when you feel no separation from the others. At the same time…now, this is one aspect of Moksha. Now, there is another aspect of the Moksha condition…at the same time we continue to live and act through out our individual birth: this very body is our instrument; you are not identified with it, but you are able to use this body as an instrument. At the same time we continue to live and act through our individual birth and becoming, but with a different knowledge and quite another kind of the experience. The world also continues, but we see it in our own being and not as something external to it and other than ourselves. To be able to live permanently in this new consciousness of our real, our integral being is to attain liberation and enjoy immortality.

I think you should keep this with you because it is a statement which has to be studied again and again so that we know exactly what Moksha means; because many people today in the world claim to be already to be in the state of Moksha; but you can see that these are very difficult conditions which…and that too permanently, it is not merely a question of experiencing it.