The Causal Law as a Limitation

Divine Life Society Publication: Chapter 9 An Analysis of the Brahma Sutra by Swami Krishnananda

When you say 'we want moksha – Liberation', liberation from what? Where is the bondage? Can anyone of us say where lies the bondage? Has God created bondage? We all go on saying that God created the world. If God created the world, he must have created the bondage of the world also. If God cannot be attributed to have created bondage, then who else created bondage? We would not ourselves create bondage of our own selves. As this question cannot easily be answered, one cannot also easily know what Moksha is. The erroneous notion enveloping our existence is such that whatever we touch creates a difficulty for us:

Sarvarambha hi doshena dhumenagnirivavritah. (Bhagavad Gita 18.48)

"Anything that one does produces a cloud of reaction; It will not bring satisfaction!"

Actually, liberation means liberation from the notion of cause and effect, that something comes from something. As the mind is involved in the web of causal law, who will liberate the mind from the network of 'cause and effect'? This is why Jnana Yoga path is considered difficult. It is like trying to melt down one's own personality.

The three Acharyas – Sankara, Ramanuja and Madhva – have their own definitions of liberation. 'You become one; – that is liberation. Now, what is the meaning of becoming one with another thing? When water is mixed with milk, the two join together and become one substance as it were; you cannot see water separately sitting in the milk, yet water is not milk. The existence of the water is merged in the existence of the milk, notwithstanding the fact that one is different from the other. Ramanuja's view is some such thing; You may feel you are one with God as water may feel it is one with milk or milk may feel that it is one with water, but they are different; though for certain purposes, they look like one. The intimate relationship between God and the soul is such that one may feel it is the same as the other, though it is not. Ramanuja's conclusion is that the soul does not get identified with God, just as milk and water do not identify themselves with each other.

Madhva's view of liberation is like loss of individuality which is possible by getting mixed up with other individualities. Say, there are grains of rice and grains of sesame (til), – if sesame seeds and rice seeds are mixed together, each seed may think that it has lost its individual existence by communicating itself with other seeds – til with rice and rice with til. This is Madhva's idea of 'union' with Reality, but yet til cannot become rice; rice is quite different from til. In the case of milk and water at least, there is an appearance of identity but in til and rice, there is no such question at all. Here is the difference between Ramanuja's opinion about moksha, and Madhva's.

But in the case of Sankara, moksha is like 'water mixing with water'; It is total oneness. If hundred drops of water unite themselves, they become one drop only. But, mixing up one hundred rupee coins together would not convert them into one big rupee – they remain one hundred only. But here in the case of water, it is not like that. Any number of drops of water mixed together will become just one big drop. Finally it can become one huge drop like the ocean. This is Sankaracharya's standpoint, basically.

What does Brahma Sutra say? It does not say clearly anything! There are indications that all the three are correct from different points of view. The Upanishads have passages corroborating all these views.

Whether something exists really or not is not important. Does the consciousness believe that something is existing, or not, is what is important. Bondage is the belief of consciousness in the existence of certain factors which are binding. 'The world is binding; all people are sources of trouble and limitation' – this notion of the individual has to be overcome in order that the 'trouble-creating' elements may depart from the soul that is troubled, which is possible if the individual cuts itself off from the causal world completely or identifies itself with the world totally. The individual cannot cut itself off from the world as it is a part of the world; the only way is to unite itself with the world. The first attempt is ostensibly dangerous and unpractical. The second is laudable, and is the proper way of self-integration.

Excerpts from:

The Causal Law as a Limitation – Chapter 9 An Analysis of the Brahma Sutra by Swami Krishnananda

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