Moksha In The True Sense

Ramana Maharshi

oi-Staff

By Staff

Tuesday, July 28, 2009, 14:20

Moksha or liberation is the fruit of all spiritual endeavors. Every spiritual aspirant is aware of it as the ultimate goal. However some seekers weave fanciful ideas of Moksha without clarity in understanding its true nature or with an imaginative inclination to attain some thing super-normal.

Once a person approached Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi with the question that whether one can attain Moksha with the body. Suri Nagamma in her 'Letters from Sri Ramanashram' has recorded the incident. Sadguru Ramana who exposed the truth to its bareness, had often confronted such questions with bombastic ideas and deftly dealt with them. Ramana shot back an array of cross questions at the seeker:

"What is Moksha?"

"Unless there is bondage, how can there be Moksha?

"Who is actually bound?"

"Me," said the seeker.

Ramana continued, "Who really are you?, How did you get this bondage and why?"

He further asked the questioner to seek answers for these questions and then it can be later considered if one can attain Moksha with the body or not. The questioner quietly left the place.

Ramana then turned to the gathered devotees and kindly said that there are many who are engaged in such quests from time immemorial. There were even so called gurus who not only taught their disciples on such lines but also wrote books on how to make the body imperishable with Kaya Kalpa Vrats and such. In due course they themselves who spoke and preached of safeguarding the body at length, perished.

Bhagavan Ramana enlightened the gathered lot saying that Moksha or liberation is nothing but 'Shanti' or absolute peace. It cannot be achieved unless through self enquiry, one realises that one is not the body and through dispassion one ceases to care about it. It cannot be attained so long as one identifies one with the body which will only increase one's binding with it causing one to swirl in illusion.

The very nature of one actually is 'peace' which shows up when the illusion of the misidentification of oneself with the body, mind complex wears off. Lucky is an aspirant who comes under the fold of a realized Sadguru who will lead one safely to liberation by not allowing his disciple to be confounded with false ideas. It was customary of Sadguru Ramana to guide such questioners back to practicality by directing them to enquire within to be liberated in the actual sense.

Chat With The Devotees Of Bhagwan Ramana Maharishi