Sri Rama is the eagerly questioning student in Yoga Vashishtha and he asks his guru Sri Vashishthaji about the qualities of one who is emancipated while living and one who is free on leaving the body.
The sage describes a jeevan mukta in many verses. Even though he appears to be moving, walking and standing in the world of transactions, the jeevan mukta is always still in his mind. Having achieved the state of oneness in knowing, he lives in the waking world as if like a person in sleep.
It does not denote a sleepy person though. In the state of sleep, we experience an uninterrupted state of happiness where no thoughts, worries, anxieties or doubts arise. In the same way the liberated being goes through the waking-state experiences with no disturbing thoughts, worries or doubts.
He is a jeevan mukta who is in the state of consciousness that knows no dawn or dusk, no joy or sorrow. He always lives in the present moment experiencing whatever life brings to him. The one who is awake to the reality in his deepest state of sleep too and knows no special state of waking awareness, whose understanding is not covered by or viewed through any thought impressions is called a jeevan mukta. Even when the mind is assailed by likes and dislikes like clouds, the jeevan mukta exists like a sky, unmoved by it. He does not entertain the feeling of doing any actions and his intellect is not tainted by any thoughts while functioning in the world or while not functioning.
Even while having his eyes open to the world or keeping them closed, he does not experience creation or destruction of the world before him. He sees all the three worlds of waking, dream and deep sleep as his own self. Of whom this world has no fear whatsoever and one who is not afraid of the world for any reason is called a liberated being. He is free of exhilaration, depression and fear. He is peaceful in the wake of all changes around him. Even though he expresses many facets of the personality in all grace and beauty, he is constantly aware of the single facet of consciousness that is expressing through it all. Though part of existence of this universe, there are no thoughts that assail his consciousness. Even while knowing the essence of everything in existence, he is calm in the face of all transactions in the world. He experiences the one self that expresses through all words and its meanings.
Living such a life of a liberated being, at the time when the body drops, he is liberated and exists like air that does not move. The bodiless being is not born, does not continue to exist physically nor does he die like ordinary mortals. He is neither the gross existence nor the subtle existence; he is neither far nor near; nor myself nor the other. As the sun, he shines over the world and as Lord Vishnu, he protects all the three worlds. The man of realisation merges and becomes one with existence, feeling no separate identity of his own on leaving the body.
(www.sharanyachaitanya.blogspot.in)