Moksha, which means “liberation” in Sanskrit,[1] is the Hindu term for spiritual enlightenment. Hinduism teaches that reaching moksha is the ultimate meaning of life.[2] Accordingly, everything in Hinduism is there to facilitate that pursuit; the whole religion is like a great river whose current inexorably pulls everything that gets swept up in it toward the waterfall of enlightenment.
Although the pursuit of enlightenment is common to all traditional religions, each religion conceptualizes that quest and its destination in its own unique way. So how does Hinduism in particular think of it?
To answer that question, we’ll consult the “Upanishads.” The Upanishads are a collection of mystical poems in the Vedas, the most sacred and definitive of all of Hinduism’s many sacred texts. Whereas the other parts of the Vedas are concerned primarily with various aspects of religious practice, the Upanishads articulate the basic worldview of Hinduism and the underlying purposes behind everything else in the Vedas.[3] These poems have much to say about moksha. In fact, it’s their central theme.[4] Let’s therefore discover what they have to say about moksha and its place within the Hindu perspective on life as a whole.
The Oneness of the Self and the Divine
Hinduism teaches that there’s something far deeper in all of us than the body, the mind (Sanskrit manas[5]), and the ego (Sanskrit ahamkara[6]) – the things that we mistakenly identify as our “self” on an everyday basis. Beneath and beyond all of that is the Atman, the “soul” or true “Self.”[7] The Katha Upanishad describes this mysterious “Self” in the following way:
The supreme Self is beyond name and form,
Beyond the senses, inexhaustible,
Without beginning, without end, beyond
Time, space, and causality, eternal,
Immutable. Those who realize the Self
Are forever free from the jaws of death.[8]
Provisionally, the Atman can be spoken of as if it were an individual soul. This use of the word can be found throughout Hinduism. But Hinduism teaches that at a deeper, truer level, there is only one Atman in all things. Each seemingly individual Atman is just a reflection or particularization of the one Atman.[9] Despite the bewildering variety of things in this world, they’re really all one thing at bottom. To quote the Isha Upanishad,
Those who see all creatures in themselves
And themselves in all creatures know no fear.
Those who see all creatures in themselves
And themselves in all creatures know no grief.
How can the multiplicity of life
Delude the one who sees its unity?…
Bright is the Self,
Indivisible, untouched by sin, wise,
Immanent and transcendent. He it is
Who holds the cosmos together.[10]
As attentive readers may have already guessed from the majestic language of that passage, the single Atman is the divine, which Hinduism calls Brahman. All of the many Hindu gods and goddesses are different “faces” of Brahman – and so are we. The true Self of all things, from the tiniest speck of dust to the greatest god, is nothing but the divine One.[11] As the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad puts it, “But where there is unity, one without a second, that is the world of Brahman. This is the supreme goal of life, the supreme treasure, the supreme joy.”[12]
But believing that intellectually is one thing; realizing it for oneself through direct experience is entirely another. And that unparalleled realization is what Hinduism calls moksha.[13]
On the one hand, moksha is simply a recognition of what has always secretly been the case rather than the creation of a truly new state[14] – but on the other hand, that recognition involves a truly revolutionary change in one’s perception of things.[15]
The Upanishads emphasize that the experience of moksha is one of unrivaled and even unimaginable bliss. Compared to moksha, the greatest earthly pleasures are trivialities. We’ve already seen something of this in the quotes from the Upanishads that we’ve examined so far, but the quintessential account of the joy of moksha comes from another passage in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.
That poem says that if we take the life of a young man with all the health, wealth, and power in the world at his disposal to be one unit of bliss, the life of a musician in the heavenly courts is one hundred times as blissful as that. A hundred times more blissful than that is the life of the deceased ancestors. The rulers of heaven enjoy an existence a hundred times more blissful than that, and the greatest among them lives a life a hundred times more blissful than all the rest. His guru basks in bliss a hundred times greater still, but the bliss of an obscure being named Virat surpasses even that by a hundredfold. Finally, the bliss of knowing Brahman in moksha is a hundred times greater than Virat’s bliss.[16]
This passage is clearly meant to be symbolic rather than literal; attempting to quantify and calculate bliss is deliberately absurd. The point is that the perfection of moksha is infinite – many orders of magnitude beyond anything that we could possibly compare with it.
“Liberation” from What, Exactly?
We’ve now seen that moksha is the realization that your true Self is the same as the true Self of all other things, which is none other than the divine. But why is this attainment called “liberation?”
From what we’ve explored so far in this article, we can already give part of the answer: moksha is “liberation” from your ego and, more broadly, from your everyday way of perceiving things.[17] But that’s only part of the answer.
Hinduism calls the world samsara, which literally means “to wander” but is used a broader, more figurative sense to mean “the cycle of rebirth” or “worldly existence itself.”[18] In samsara, the Atman “wanders” through a series of reincarnations, dying in one form and being reborn in another over and over again, until it finally achieves moksha. As the Katha Upanishad says,
There is no one
But the Self. Who sees multiplicity
But not the one indivisible Self
Must wander on and on from death to death.[19]
Along the way, the forms in which the Atman is reincarnated, and the life experiences it has, are determined by its karma. This means that whenever the Atman performs good actions, it gets to enjoy pleasurable experiences, and it will be reborn in a more desirable form farther down the road. And whenever it performs bad actions, it has to suffer unpleasant experiences and rebirth in a less desirable form in the future.[20]
But when the Atman finally reaches moksha, it’s “liberated” from karma and all the suffering that karma brings with it. The Atman’s existing karma dissolves, and the actions performed by its current embodied form no longer generate new karma. The Chandogya Upanishad says, “As water does not cling to the lotus leaf, so evil deeds do not cling to one who knows Brahman.”[21] The Mundaka Upanishad adds, “The knot of the heart is cut, all the doubts are dispelled and karma comes to an end when He is seen.”[22]
In the end, even the best lives in samsara are full of pain. They’re all based on maya, “illusion,” the mistaken notion that we’re all separate from each other and from Brahman. So while pursuing better karma, and thus a better position within samsara, is a sensible goal for what it is, the higher goal is “liberation” from samsara and maya altogether. Once the Atman finally achieves moksha, it ceases to be reborn, and instead merges into Brahman completely when its current embodied form is spent and dies. That’s why its accumulated karma dissipates.[23] The Shvetashvatara Upanishad rejoices in this rare, sublime freedom from samsara and maya:
On this ever-revolving wheel of life
The individual self goes round and round
Through life after life, believing itself
To be a separate creature, until
It sees its identity with the Lord of Love
And attains immortality in the indivisible whole.
He is the eternal reality, sing
The scriptures, and the ground of existence.
Those who perceive him in every creature
Merge in him and are released from the wheel
Of birth and death.[24]
When you realize that your true Self is eternal and isn’t subject to birth or death, you cease to be reborn.
How Can One Reach Moksha?
How can one achieve this prized “liberation?” According to the Upanishads, there are a few related factors that must be in place. The Hindu who seeks moksha must purify his or her heart through moral practice, and must calm and cleanse his or her mind through meditation. Thus the Katha Upanishad declares:
The Self cannot be known by anyone
Who desists not from unrighteous ways,
Controls not the senses, stills not the mind,
And practices not meditation.[25]
The Mundaka Upanishad concurs:
But those who are pure in heart, who practice
Meditation and conquer their senses
And passions, shall attain the immortal Self,
Source of all light and source of all life.[26]
But personal efforts of all kinds will only take you so far toward moksha. The final push over the edge must come from a source that we have no control over: divine grace. The Katha Upanishad reminds us,
The Self can be attained only by those
Whom the Self chooses….
They go beyond
All sorrow who extinguish their self-will
And behold the glory of the Self
Through the grace of the Lord of Love.[27]
In the end, however, this yearned-for grace will be granted to all beings. Hinduism teaches that all will reach moksha sooner or later, no matter how many rebirths it takes.[28]
Hinduism includes four main paths to moksha that build on this common foundation in different ways. These four paths are called “yogas,” using the word in its original sense of “approach to moksha.”[29]
The first of these is called jnana yoga, which treats the pursuit of moksha as a quest for knowledge – a knowledge so great that no words can contain it, so it can only be experienced firsthand. This path consists of using particular meditation techniques to gain intuitive, experiential insight into the meaning of the teachings of the Upanishads and other Hindu scriptures. These techniques also break down all of one’s familiar reference points and identities in this world, eventually leaving nothing but the Self.[30]
The second is called bhakti yoga, which consists of loving worship of the divine in the form of a personal god or goddess. Ideally, it culminates in an experience of union with the divine – moksha. Whereas jnana yoga works primarily through the mind, bhakti yoga works primarily through the heart.[31][32]
The third is karma yoga, which involves acting for others’ benefit for no other reason than to see the Self in all things. One renounces any attachment to the tangible success or failure of one’s actions, as well as how much one might personally suffer in the process. One becomes a selfless instrument of the Self, helping Itself.[33]
And the fourth and final main “approach to moksha” is raja yoga, a particular set of moral disciplines and meditation practices that build on each other until one’s awareness is filled with nothing other than the divine. Raja yoga was given its definitive form by the sage Patanjali in his Yoga Sutra of roughly 200 AD.[34]
Moksha in Hindu Philosophy
Over the centuries, the Upanishads’ emphasis on revealing profound yet hidden truths about the nature of reality has inspired some Hindus to attempt to understand those poems’ teachings in a systematic, intellectually rigorous way. Unlike the Upanishads themselves, the philosophies that have arisen through this endeavor are treated by the Hindu tradition as a whole as being simply the products of the fallible human mind rather than infallible revelation.[35] But a few of those philosophies have been so well-received that they’ve become important – though competing – frameworks through which many Hindus have understood their religion. Let’s therefore see what the two most historically influential Hindu philosophies have had to say about moksha.
The names of these two philosophies indicate both their similarities and their differences. Both have the word Vedanta in their names, which means that they’re commentaries on the Upanishads.[36] And both place the word Advaita, which means “monistic or non-dualistic,” in front of the word Vedanta, to indicate that they emphasize the Upanishads’ teachings on the oneness of all things.[37] Indeed, the name of the first philosophy in question here, that of the thinker Shankara from the eighth or ninth century AD, is simply Advaita Vedanta.[38] The name of the second philosophy, which was developed by Ramanuja in the eleventh or twelfth century AD, adds Vishishta, “qualified,” in front of Advaita to form the name Vishishtadvaita Vedanta.[39] As those names imply, Shankara stresses the total oneness of all things in Brahman, whereas Ramanuja adds some significant caveats to that oneness while still basically accepting it.
Shankara’s Advaita Vedanta highlights and builds on the Upanishads’ teachings on the one Atman (Self) in all things and the illusory nature of the everyday world (maya). For Shankara, our ordinary perception that we’re all separate, limited beings is pure ignorance (Sanskrit avidya or ajnana).[40] He writes, “The painful experience of the individual person is not something truly real but is occasioned by a mistaken failure to discriminate between one’s true identity and the superimposed properties (mind, body and sense-faculties) that are fabricated by ignorance.”[41]
To illustrate this, Shankara uses a simile that’s become famous in Hinduism. Our mundane perspective in life is like when we see a rope lying on the ground in dim light, and for a moment we erroneously think that the rope is a snake. As long as the illusion of the snake persists, we’re mentally and emotionally perturbed by the presence of the threatening yet intriguing animal. But when we take a closer look, we realize that the “snake” had really been a rope all along, and it was laughable for us to be so affected by something that was just a trick of the light and/or the mind. Moksha is like seeing the rope for what it is.[42]
Ramanuja’s Vishishtadvaita Vedanta agrees that moksha is “liberation” from our usual mistaken identification with our bodies, minds, and egos.[43] But Ramanuja disagrees with Shankara’s view that the basic form of the world beyond that is deceptive. For Ramanuja, the world is the real creation of the gods, not a divine sleight of hand.[44] It’s the “body” of the gods.[45]
Since everything in our world is a manifestation of the divine, the divine is all that truly exists. Everything that exists, exists because it’s part of the divine. But that’s the catch: for Ramanuja, you and I, and everything else, are unique parts of the divine rather than distorted reflections or projections of the divine as a whole, as Shankara would have it. Thus, within the overarching oneness of all things in the divine, we remain irreducibly specific individuals. Moksha is the realization of that ultimate oneness, but we retain our distinctiveness as different parts of the divine even in that experience of unity. This is how Ramanuja’s monism is “qualified” rather than “pure” like Shankara’s.[46]
For Ramanuja, therefore, moksha doesn’t negate the entirety of our everyday perception, but only negates part of it, and adds something immeasurably huge to it. It’s debatable whether or not this view really does as much justice to the experience of enlightenment as Shankara’s view does. But at the very least, Vishishtadvaita Vedanta still points strongly in the direction of moksha from the starting point of our ordinary experience. And in the end, no ideas or words are capable of doing justice to the experience of enlightenment, so even Shankara’s Advaita Vedanta ultimately falls flat. However, it seems to me that, along the way, Shankara goes further in the right direction.
Conclusion: What True Freedom Is
In my view, there’s particular significance for us today in the fact that moksha, the Hindu term for spiritual enlightenment, means “liberation.”
You don’t need me to tell you that modern Western culture is obsessed with the idea of “freedom.” But what is freedom? The modern West evidently defines “freedom” as the ego’s ability to believe whatever it wants and to do whatever it wants.
Hinduism defines “freedom” in a radically different, and radically truer-to-life, way. Calling enlightenment “liberation” indicates that real freedom is not the freedom of the ego, but rather freedom from the ego. Only in moksha can we see things as they truly are and enjoy supreme bliss. Mundane, secular enjoyments may taste sweet for a while, but they all turn to bitterness in the end. They keep us trapped in the prison of everyday life – in Hindu terms, samsara and maya. As the Chandogya Upanishad says, “One who meditates upon the Self and realizes the Self sees the Self everywhere, and rejoices in the Self. Such a one lives in freedom and is at home wherever he goes. But those who pursue the finite are blind to the Self and live in bondage.”[47]
In our attempt to become “free” in the modern sense of the word, we’ve actually become less free than our more spiritual premodern ancestors were. That’s why, perhaps now more than ever, we need traditional religions like Hinduism to guide us toward true freedom and away from the pseudo-freedoms with which we attempt to content ourselves.
References:
[1] Rodrigues, Hillary P. 2017. Introducing Hinduism. Routledge. p. 65-66.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Klostermaier, Klaus. 2007. A Survey of Hinduism. State University of New York Press. p. 156-157.
[4] Rodrigues, Hillary P. 2017. Introducing Hinduism. Routledge. p. 38-39.
[5] Biardeau, Madeleine. 2002. Hinduism: The Anthropology of a Civilization. Transl. Richard Nice. Oxford University Press. p. 79-81.
[6] Bartley, Christopher. 2008. Indian Philosophy A-Z. Shri Jainendra Press. p. 12.
[7] Bartley, Christopher. 2015. An Introduction to Indian Philosophy: Hindu and Buddhist Ideas from Original Sources. Bloomsbury. p. 12-13.
[8] Easwaran, Eknath (transl.). 2007. “The Katha Upanishad.” In The Upanishads. Nilgiri Press. p. 82-83.
[9] Bartley, Christopher. 2015. An Introduction to Indian Philosophy: Hindu and Buddhist Ideas from Original Sources. Bloomsbury. p. 12-13.
[10] Easwaran, Eknath (transl.). 2007. “The Isha Upanishad.” In The Upanishads. Nilgiri Press. p. 58.
[11] Bartley, Christopher. 2015. An Introduction to Indian Philosophy: Hindu and Buddhist Ideas from Original Sources. Bloomsbury. p. 12-13.
[12] Easwaran, Eknath (transl.). 2007. “The Isha Upanishad.” In The Upanishads. Nilgiri Press. p. 112.
[13] Rodrigues, Hillary P. 2017. Introducing Hinduism. Routledge. p. 65-66.
[14] Klostermaier, Klaus. 2007. A Survey of Hinduism. State University of New York Press. p. 178-179.
[15] Ibid. p. 171-172.
[16] Sastry, Trilochan. 2022. The Essentials of Hinduism: An Introduction to All the Sacred Texts. Penguin/Viking Press. p. 51.
[17] Easwaran, Eknath (transl.). 2007. “The Chandogya Upanishad.” In The Upanishads. Nilgiri Press. p. 127.
[18] Rodrigues, Hillary P. 2017. Introducing Hinduism. Routledge. p. 63-65.
[19] Easwaran, Eknath (transl.). 2007. “The Chandogya Upanishad.” In The Upanishads. Nilgiri Press. p. 85.
[20] Rodrigues, Hillary P. 2017. Introducing Hinduism. Routledge. p. 63-65.
[21] Bartley, Christopher. 2015. An Introduction to Indian Philosophy: Hindu and Buddhist Ideas from Original Sources. Bloomsbury. p. 177.
I’ve taken the liberty of capitalizing “Brahman” in this quote and taking it out of italics so that the word appears in a way that’s consistent with the rest of the article, in order to facilitate easy comprehension. This doesn’t change the meaning of the quote in any way.
[22] Ibid. p. 178.
[23] Rodrigues, Hillary P. 2017. Introducing Hinduism. Routledge. p. 65-66.
[24] Easwaran, Eknath (transl.). 2007. “The Chandogya Upanishad.” In The Upanishads. Nilgiri Press. p. 160.
[25] Easwaran, Eknath (transl.). 2007. “The Katha Upanishad.” In The Upanishads. Nilgiri Press. p. 79-80.
[26] Easwaran, Eknath (transl.). 2007. “The Mundaka Upanishad.” In The Upanishads. Nilgiri Press. p. 187-188.
[27] Easwaran, Eknath (transl.). 2007. “The Katha Upanishad.” In The Upanishads. Nilgiri Press. p. 79-80.
[28] Sastry, Trilochan. 2022. The Essentials of Hinduism: An Introduction to All the Sacred Texts. Penguin/Viking Press. p. 252.
[29] Rodrigues, Hillary P. 2017. Introducing Hinduism. Routledge. p. 171.
[30] Klostermaier, Klaus. 2007. A Survey of Hinduism. State University of New York Press. p. 160-164.
[31] Biardeau, Madeleine. 2002. Hinduism: The Anthropology of a Civilization. Transl. Richard Nice. Oxford University Press. p. 113.
[32] Flood, Gavin. 1996. An Introduction to Hinduism. Cambridge University Press. p. 131.
[33] Rodrigues, Hillary P. 2017. Introducing Hinduism. Routledge. p. 173-174.
[34] Ibid. p. 133-138.
[35] Sastry, Trilochan. 2022. The Essentials of Hinduism: An Introduction to All the Sacred Texts. Penguin/Viking Press. p. p. 78.
[36] Rodrigues, Hillary P. 2017. Introducing Hinduism. Routledge. p. 141-142.
[37] Bartley, Christopher. 2015. An Introduction to Indian Philosophy: Hindu and Buddhist Ideas from Original Sources. Bloomsbury. p. 182.
[38] Rodrigues, Hillary P. 2017. Introducing Hinduism. Routledge. p. 142.
[39] Ibid. p. 144.
[40] Ibid. p. 142-144.
[41] Bartley, Christopher. 2015. An Introduction to Indian Philosophy: Hindu and Buddhist Ideas from Original Sources. Bloomsbury. p. 208.
[42] Rodrigues, Hillary P. 2017. Introducing Hinduism. Routledge. p. 142-144.
[43] Ibid. p. 144-145.
[44] Chatterjee, Satischandra, and Dhirendramohan Datta. 1960. An Introduction to Indian Philosophy. University of Calcutta Press. p. 414.
[45] Klostermaier, Klaus. 2007. A Survey of Hinduism. State University of New York Press. p. 362-363.
[46] Rodrigues, Hillary P. 2017. Introducing Hinduism. Routledge. p. 144-145.
[47] Easwaran, Eknath (transl.). 2007. “The Chandogya Upanishad.” In The Upanishads. Nilgiri Press. p. 140.