Why does the need for moksha or mukti arise, to begin with? Why does it resonate across the board, straddling many diverse belief systems? Why not posit a different, alternative spiritual goal post instead? Time and again, over generations, a handful of individuals with a keener pain sensitivity than the rest have been quick to grasp that nothing but mukti provides an enduring answer to life’s manifold and interminable sufferings. It is pain and suffering, therefore, that necessitate and legitimise mukti. And nothing but a stronger desire to terminate suffering has traditionally separated those of lofty spiritual stature from the benumbed laity.
Would the idea of mukti hold any significance if life were all roses and rainbows? The answer, quite simply, is no. Why, then, does many a scripture speak in unison when it comes to prescribing tyaga or renunciation of pleasures and desire, as the mantra for mukti? The practical truth is that such prescriptions aren’t as much about renouncing pleasures altogether as they are about loosening our bonds, our attachment, with things of pleasure.
For since pain and pleasure are two sides of the same coin, attachment to things of pleasure naturally becomes the foremost progenitor of suffering. But the fact remains that the idea of mukti isn’t inherently opposed or antithetical to pleasure; in fact, it is quite the reverse. And it is the lack of this realisation, often characteristic of those with minimal initiation into human psychology, that acts as a major impediment in one’s path to mukti.
Equally blameworthy is the popularly floated notion that mukti is something that one typically attains only after death. Not only does this do injustice to waking life, but the unrealistic ideals it espouses about what qualifies as true mukti render the goal moot for most of the common folk, making it seem like the exclusive preserve of some chosen and gifted individuals. A little acquaintance with scriptures, if not one’s original thought, reveals that this is anything but the case.
The Upanishads, for instance, posit two stages of mukti: Videha mukti, that which permanently merges the soul with the supreme brahman after death; and Jivan mukti, one that is perfectly attainable during life but doesn’t practically entail the renunciation of all pleasure and desire. Instead, it necessitates being detached from pleasure, such that any relationship with it is superficial enough not to culminate in keen suffering when the thing of pleasure is gone. Pleasures and pains continue to linger even after Jivan mukti, for they are an inexorable fact of life and only exhaust upon death.
It is an over-censorious attitude towards life’s pleasures, begotten by the unrealistic ideals that surround our popular perception of mukti, that often presents the biggest challenge towards spiritual advancement. Think of the mind like a machine. Much like machines running on fuel, the mind runs on stimulation and fulfillment. Deprive it of these, and things go rapidly downhill with the human psyche. Our minds aren’t designed for being fussy about every desire, but are also programmed to prefer variety and multiplicity. One who is over-judgemental of life’s pleasures not only fails in their quest to subdue them, but it results in immense and needless rebound suffering. And the invariable corollary is that what once began as a crusade for ending suffering ends up accruing only more suffering.
How, then, does one go about realising Jivan mukti? If indulgence is the nemesis of happiness and so is being over-censorious of pleasure, where does the elusive balance lie? At what point and on what basis should one question and subdue their pleasures? The answer is exceedingly simple: One must never forget the original purpose that mukti is meant to serve—that of relief from suffering. And for the crusader for mukti, there is no guiding star other than suffering itself.
As it follows, it is sensible to subdue pleasure only when it threatens a greater suffering. In everyday life, this translates into two prominent situations: first, where our pleasures are ill-informed or myopic, and sufferings of a much larger magnitude lurk underneath; and second, when pleasures deepen into attachments that inevitably predispose us to potential suffering. In every other situation, life is best left to itself—unalloyed and unintervened. And the secret spice of mukti is that the greater the quantum of needless intervention, the more the whole endeavour for mukti turns self-defeating. It is therefore that in democratising and demystifying the idea of mukti emerges a pressing spiritual need of the modern human era.