Devotion is the culmination of the aspiration for liberation

Happiness. Thank you. Hare Krishna.

Devotion is the culmination of the aspiration for liberation. We all aspire for liberation. The statue of liberty is one of the most attractive and enduring symbols of America's and indeed the world's aspiration and trust with freedom, aspiration for freedom, trust with freedom.

The idea that we can have a country where people are free to practice what they want to practice. So that charms the human heart and we want to be free from external limitations which constrict us, which restrict us, which imprison us. So that is the reason why countries fight against other country or other countries.

India fought against British imperialism and so many other countries fought like that. So at one there can be national struggle for national independence. There can be the free struggle against racial discrimination.

Martin Luther King pioneered that in America, civil rights movement. There can be like that various, the aspiration for freedom from restriction is there always. Now whether it is national independence, racial independence or whatever kind of independence, now none of these forms of liberation can liberate us from the fundamental limitation and that limitation is the limitation of mortality.

Mortality means that we are all destined inescapably to death and it is this recognition of we some people may be free, some people may be bound in this life but at the end everybody is forced. Now that external force should deprive us of life is also a serious form of lack of independence, of bondage, of deprivation. So in the Eastern traditions there has been a greater focus on not so much on these external liberations although they were also considered but more on this liberation from the fetter of manger, from the bondage to mortality and that is why the word liberation in the context of the dharmic religions, in the religions that have evolved, the thought systems, the religions, the worldviews that have evolved in the Indian tradition, in their context the word liberation generally has meant liberation from bondage to matter itself.

Matter is temporary, matter is perishable and to become liberated from it we need to break free from the fetter of matter. So this idea has been there in the six systems of philosophy also this idea of liberation. So there is then consider the Nyaya-Vaisheshika school of philosophy.

Now in the Nyaya-Vaisheshika school there is the idea that the whole concept of consciousness emerges when there is contact of spirit with matter. So basically consciousness is considered to be a product of the contact of such contact and when that contact is ended, when there is a divorce of the two then there is eternal existence. Then in the philosophy it is thought that our not to mortality, our pact with death is ended and so then if consciousness is the product of that contact then what remains is only existence but without any consciousness also.

So it's if we consider from the point of Sat-Chit-Ananda the conception of liberation in the Nyaya-Vaisheshika school of school the philosophy is of only Sat. There is Sat which is there in liberation but nothing more. Now in the generally the philosophies are grouped together so and the second grouping is Sankhya Yoga.

So in Sankhya Yoga consciousness is considered to be a distinct reality, Prakriti and Purusha. Purusha is conscious, Prakriti is unconscious and bondage is considered to be due to the contact of Prakriti and Purusha. Liberation is not the dissolution of consciousness but it is a dissolution of the knot of Purusha to Prakriti.

So then when that knot is removed liberation is attained then there is consciousness but in these schools of thought there is Chit which exists but the liberation is considered to be that all duality ends because the idea is duality the difference between object and subject that means perceiver and pursued that is created because of the illusion which is created by the contact of Purusha with Prakriti. So at liberation what is featured is contentless consciousness that means there is consciousness but there is actually no observer and no observed there is no subject there is no object there is only contentless consciousness. So in this case of liberation there is Sat and there is Chit but there is no Ananda.

Now in Vedanta actually Mimamsa is also one school but it is considered Purva. Purva Mimamsa Uttar Vimamsa is Vedanta. So Vedanta is something similar.

Now in Mimamsa the idea is sorry in Vedanta it is understood that liberation that there is consciousness there is the soul Atman and the Atman when liberated attains its nature which is Sat Chit Ananda. Sat Chit Ananda is the nature of the soul and that nature is reclaimed at the time of liberation but within the Vedanta also there is Vedantic liberation. So Vedantic liberation is in one sense the reclaiming of the complete nature of the soul but even in Vedantic liberation there are times when liberation is conceived impersonalistically.

Impersonalistically means liberation is thought of as merely the separation or is thought of as just one as emerging into oneness. So actually although there may be a claim to great Ananda but without any individuality without any reciprocity without any variety the concept of Ananda is merely abstract it is not really tangible happiness substantial happiness. So it is actually in personalist Vedanta that the meaning of liberation is fully understood and the joy of liberation is fully relished.

So real liberation is understood to be not just the removal of something external but it is the revival of something internal. So that means if you see in the Bhagavad Gita 18.54 Krishna talks about this impersonal conception of liberation. Brahma bhuta prasannatma na shochati na kankshati samah sarvesu bhutesu mad bhaktim labhate param Krishna says that that in the first three lines he's describing the impersonal conception of liberation.

Brahma bhuta then he says na shochati na kankshati samah sarvesu bhutesu. Equal vision towards everything that is the concept of impersonal liberation but immediately after Krishna is saying what there mad bhaktim labhate param one attains my bhakti, attains devotion to me. So devotion is considered to be the culmination of liberation and that what happens with this devotion not just ordinary devotion but pure devotion.

Krishna says that by bhakti one can know me as I am and then one can attain the highest destination, immortal, eternal, unlimited. So the point here is devotion is considered here the culmination of liberation. Why? Because ultimately what is limited and constricted by various forms of bondage is our longing for love.

That lies at the core of our being and when that longing for love is freed, freed from the factor of matter and freed from the impersonal void, from the nullity of impersonalism and it is truly freed to to be directed towards all attractive supreme person Krishna. Then that brings the supreme happiness. Life becomes an eternal ecstatic festival of undying love and that actually is life that is supreme liberation.

There one relishes the supreme happiness. So thus devotion is the culmination of the aspiration for liberation. When we aspire for liberation we aspire essentially to love and to rejoice in love and that is fulfilled, that path of devotion.

Thank you. So if Christians say that because Jesus died at the cross his blood.