When the sage-disciple Bharadwaja asked the preceptor Valmiki about the state of a liberated mind, the master said just as the sky which we know for sure is colourless appears blue each time we see it, the temporary world of names and forms keep appearing real to us.
Without the disappearance of all thoughts of the objects, people and situations of the world, knowledge of the self is not experienced. It is only by listening to the words of the Upanishads that one realises this truth of the self and not otherwise.
Even if it is clearly revealed that the thoughts of the world are all an illusion, we experience it so really that we don’t believe it is an illusion. It is only with the knowledge and the understanding that there are no names and forms that the objective illusion is wiped off in the mind. This is compared to the knowledge that the blue colour of the sky is only a superimposition, that the presence of a blue sky is erased from the mind.
If this understanding is established deeply, the individual attains a liberated state of mind. Even if a crore years are lived, the reality of the world will not be erased from our minds, as long as the ignorance of the true nature of our own self remains.
Moksha or liberation is nothing but dropping off of all our repetitive thought constructions. It is not even a letting go or dropping, but simply not identifying with the thoughts as our own. When the thoughts get thinned out, the mind becomes quiet, just as the snow that melts in sunlight flows as water. The body continues to exist lifetime after lifetime, like a chain, because of the presence of these thoughts or deep impressions of objects in our consciousness.
These thought impressions are of two types—pure and impure. The impure thoughts that are ridden with desires, anger, greed, delusion, arrogance and jealousy are the cause for further births. A pure mind that has none of these negative thought impressions destroy further expression of human births in the future.
The form of ignorance is dense darkness. Its heaviness is of the nature of a strong sense of “I”. This impure mind, which is filled with arrogant thoughts born out of ignorance, likes and dislikes, is the cause of rebirths, say the wise people.
The pure mind exists supporting the body for the rest of the life and is not born again in another form after the death.
Just as Sri Rama attained this state of liberation of mind even while living, I will tell you O Bharadwaja, so that you too may experience that state which puts an end to old age and death, Maharishi Valmiki continues.
(www.sharanyachaitanya. blogspot.in)