NINTH CHAPTER

In this chapter, swamiji has explained ‘bondage’ and ‘freedom from this bondage’ or mukti.

All the sects, popularly called religions claim that one can be free from the bondage of birth and death by following their principles but these religions do not clearly mention as to what ‘mukti’ is. Generally, there is a notion that the persons, who attain ‘mukti’, go to heaven, and the persons, who do not attain ‘mukti’ go to a place called hell. In heaven which is a place separate from the place, where we live in, there is no pain and everything becomes available without any effort. Similarly, hell is a place, where the inhabitants have to undergo very painful living. First of all, swamiji has mentioned that heaven and hell are not geographical places. He says that heaven is enjoyment of worldly pleasures and, likewise, hell is suffering from worldly pains. In every worldly pleasure, there is an element of pain, inherent in that pleasure and in every pain, there is some element of pleasure. But ‘mukti’ is such a condition, where there is no scope for any sort of pain. Whole of this thing can be understood through an example. There are three states of existence—awake-stage, dream-stage and dormant-stage. In the awake-stage, we enjoy both worldly pleasures and worldly pains, for example, pleasure received from eating sweets and pain received from diseases. In the dream-stage, we are not directly linked with worldly objects but we enjoy pleasure and pain in this state because of memory. But in the dormant-stage, we enjoy pleasure only, without any shadow of pain. For example, after taking a deep sleep, we say that we have enjoyed the sleep. This pleasure is enjoyed by birds and animals, too, but for a short span of time, that is, during deep-sleep only. This pleasure is similar to that of ‘mukti’. This pleasure is not only absence of griefs but also has an existence of its own. ‘Mukti’ is not a miracle of any kind. All the prevalent religions have provided shortcuts for attaining ‘mukti’ instantaneously. Development of soul is very gradual. Leaving bad habits, acquiring good habits, going into appropriate environment and avoiding bad environment cannot be accomplished in a short span of time. This can be realized by taking the example of one’s own self. Even acquiring a little knowledge takes a lot of time and effort. A well-known modern scientist, Newton said, “Standing on the shore of a sea, I kept collecting the shells, whereas ocean of knowledge was in front of me but I could not have a dip in that”. Greatest knowledge of a learned fellow is the realization that he does not know anything. In these conditions, for attaining ‘mukti’ a number of human-births are required. For attaining ‘mukti’, one is required to clean various blots of his life, which have stained it from time to time, besides avoiding further blots. In this sequence, principle of rebirth, too, has been discussed.  

WORDS OF SWAMIJI

-As cutting of root destroys a tree, in the same way, leaving sins destroys griefs.