Mumukshuthwam

Next, we shall consider Mumukshuthwam - the longing for Moksha or Liberation. This longing cannot arise from either riches or from the scholarship that may be won at great expense of money. Nor can it emerge from wealth or progeny, or rites and rituals recommended in the scriptures or acts of charity, for Moksha [liberation from grief and acquisition of bliss] can come only from the conquest of Ajnana [ignorance]. A person might master all the sastras along with all the learned commentaries written on them by experts; he might propitiate all the gods by performing the prescribed modes of worship and ceremonies; but these cannot grant the boon of Liberation. These are all motivated to earn benefits and boons, other than the supreme knowledge [Jnana]. Success in the path of knowledge alone can confer salvation. A person might have every article needed for cooking a meal but, if fire is not available, how can the meal be prepared? So too, if Atma Jnana [Awareness of Atma as the only Reality] is not won, Liberation if it is declared that one can attain Mukti or Liberation if he bathes in the waters of sacred rivers, what shall we say of the fish and other aquatic species that spend all their lives in the rivers! If it is believed that spending years in mountain caves will lead to Liberation, what do mice, what do wild beasts attain? If, by means of ascetic practices like eating roots and tubers and chewing leaves for sustenance of the body, one can attain Liberation, must goats who feed on leaves and pigs that dig out tubers also attain Liberation? When plastering the entire body with ash is hailed as asceticism, can dogs and donkeys which roll on ash heaps claim Liberation? These beliefs and practices are signs of poor understanding. One must concentrate on achieving Atma Jnana, the Awareness of the Eternal Universal Atmic Reality.

The word Atha, with which the very first Sutra begins, means "thereafter" and, after the inquiry into its implications, it has been found that it involves the acquisition of these four attainments - Viveka, Vairagya, the Six Virtues and the Yearning for Liberation.

The next word too is Athah, the tha being soft, instead of being stressed as in the first word. Athah means "for this reason". The inquiry has therefore to be made: for which reason? For the reason that neither the examination of the texts of the Sastras, nor the performance of rites and rituals, nor through the study of material objects, nor by the process of learning from the example of other men, can the awareness of the Supreme, the Brahmam, be secured. Because objects and individuals, rites and activities are transitory. They suffer from decay and destruction. They can at best help the cleansing of the mind, that is all. Karma cannot liberate one from the basic ignorance, or award the awareness of the reality as Brahmam. One has to be conscious of this limitation, in order to win the right of inquiry into the mystery of the Brahmam, the source and core of the Cosmos.