[Advaita-l] jIvanmukti (liberation right in this life) - A State or Status

[Ramesam Vemuri]

Dear Shri Raghav Kumar Garu and Shri Subrahmanian Garu,

Namaskarams

Thank you for your kind inputs.

I would also suppose, as you say, Shri Raghav Ji, that "seeking to live
long enjoying the
phala of *GYAnam* [is] an attitude [that] contradicts *GYAnam *and is
usually a sign
of inadequate preparedness such as vairagya."

The instances like Shri Trailinga Swami that you referred to, IMHO, have to
be treated separately, as I mentioned in the first post of mine. They are
exceptions. Having attained liberation, they are virtually *brahman* except
for the fact that they have to take care of a body also. But then, as Shri
Subrahmanian Garu suggested, *brahman* Itself will look after those bodies
(BG 9.22 and Shankara's commentary there on) without a sense of doership
for the individual.

Shankara discusses in detail at 3.3.32, BSB citing several examples of such
divine individuals (*apAntaratama*-s; *adhikArika puruSha*-s) who
continue to live in a corporeal body to complete a mission. They have
achieved Identity with *brahman* Itself, and the world, after all, is a
manifestation of *brahman*, non-different from them.

Another argument in support of a long life for a *jIvanmukta* posed
sometimes is that no source will be left for further transmission of the
Knowledge of the Self if the "Realized" Guru does not last long. I am not
sure that this is a very strong argument because, say, after a maha *pralaya
*everything and everyone is absorbed back into *brahman*. That does not
mean that the *parA vidyA* is irretrievably lost. Self-Knowledge Itself
being *brahman*, It will always appear in some way again.

Hence, we may perhaps conclude that the period of having to carry the
burden of the body-mind as an *upAdhi *after liberation is generally,
exceptions apart, is not too long - until the body falls. On the attainment
of Self-Knowledge, as Shankara himself says at 3.3.32, all the actions of
the seeker get dissipated (2.2.9, *muNDaka*), all the knots become untied
(8.26.2, *chAndogya, *2.4.14 & 15*, kaTha*), BG 4.37 and so on.

In addition, we have from *aparokShAnubhUti*:


*“तत्त्वज्ञानोदयादूर्ध्वं प्रारब्धं नैव विद्यते ।**देहादीनामसत्यत्वात्तु
यथा स्वप्नः प्रबोधतः ॥ *— 91.

[After the origination of the Self-Knowledge, *prArabdha *verily ceases to
exist, in as much as the body etc. become non-existent. Just as a dream
does not exist on waking up.]

Swami Vidyaranya, in his gloss “*dIpikA*” on *aparokShAnubhuUti *writes:

“The very use of the plural “*karmANi*” clearly indicates that the shruti
is negating the ‘*prArabdha*’ also; it would have used the dual number “
*karmaNi*,” if it intended that only the *sancita* and* agAmi* were to be
meant here.” The mantra by itself did not talk of just two of the three
fruits of karma.

And we can be sure that Swami Vidyaranya would NOT say anything that would
be contrary to or that which would violate Shankara’s teaching.
The earlier *shloka*s in *aparokShAnubhUti* make it abundantly clear that
the concept of *prArabdha* was brought in the *shruti *commentaries only
for the sake of the ignorant.

We have to bear in mind that the model of “Superimposition – Sublation” was
adopted in imparting the Advaitic message in the major Upanishads. So the
shruti was explicated by Shankara in the context of “superimposing”
creation. The concept of “creation” inevitably brings in its wake the
downstream concepts of birth, rebirth, the  *kArmic *effects, *prArabdha *etc.
We may assume, Shankara talked of the *prArabdha *in his very brief comment
on *muNDaka *mantra 2.2.9, just to conform with the
superimposition-sublation model followed by him in his *bhAShya-*s. In
*aparokShAnubhuUti*, he is free from this constraint and he expressed
clearly the position as confirmed by Swami Vidyaranya also.

warm regards,

[To Continue ...]

On Sat, Mar 28, 2020 at 3:06 PM Raghav Kumar Dwivedula via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> A small addendum -
> The acharya says that the jivanmukta can live and teach even long after
> GYAnam and in fact this is how the Advaita parampara survives to this day.
>