Sayujya-mukti and Bliss in Brahman
Gaudiya Philosophy Questions & Answers

Sayujya-mukti and Bliss in Brahman

Question: This question is regarding sayujya-mukti, where there is no personal relationship with the Lord. If a living entity attains this mukti (after practice), then does he eternally remain in that liberated state or does he fall back to the material sphere due to lack of love for the Personality of Godhead? According to my understanding, if he has attained mukti (any of the five types), then it means that he is liberated for good; there is no chance of again coming into the material realm.

Answer: Yes, your understanding is correct. Mukti means permanent freedom from bondage. Such a person has no karma, so what kind of body would he get if he were to come back? The material body is a product of past karma. If he came back, when would this happen? How much time would have to pass? How then is mukti different from going to heaven? All these questions arise. So he does not come back.

Question: But one objection is that since the natural state of every jiva is to serve Krishna (jivera svarupa haya krsnera nitya-dasa), how is it that the jiva can stay contented in the state of sayujya-mukti since there is no conception of serving the Lord in that state of existence.

Answer: Just being within His effulgence is service. Just as if you decorate the temple with a flower, then the flower is doing service. So being within brahmajyoti is service, and there is no difference between Krsna and Brahman – vadanti tat tattva-vidah.

Or you can understand that his svarupa has the potential to do seva, but he is not doing seva. Just as if you have a servant and he is sleeping, so you do not say that he is not a servant because he is not doing seva. Although he is sleeping, his identity is still that of a servant. So svarupa is the potential, and that potential may be active or inactive. In our conditioned state also, we do not serve, yet our svarupa is dasa.

Question: You said, “The servant is sleeping”. He is allowed to sleep eternally?

Answer: Please understand that an example is given to make something understandable. It should not be taken literally. Sayujya mukti is eternal but it is not sleeping. It is like sleeping. Just as in deep sleep one feels nothing external and remains absorbed in one’s own self and feels happy, in sayujya mukti one feels inner bliss.

Mukti means freedom from both the subtle and the gross body. It is of two types, personal and impersonal. In personal mukti, a mukta gets a spiritual body in Vaikuntha. In impersonal mukti, a mukta has no body – material or spiritual. In sleep one is still bound with material bodies – subtle and gross.

Question: CC Madya 8.257 seems to say that after merging in Brahman one gets a sthāvara-deha.

Answer: That is not true. Read the payar carefully. It says yaiche (= just as). It is like getting sthavara deha, not actually getting it. So the correct meaning is that one will be situated (avasthiti) just like (yaiche) in a sthavara deha. It means one is without any external consciousness, which is the same example I gave – like sleeping.

Question: Then what is the meaning of the second part of that line; someone desiring bhukti gets the body ‘just as/ like’ a demigod. Dimmock actually has instead of bhukti –->  bhakti: ‘Those who desire bhakti are ultimately perfected’, the body of a deva then means Vaikuntha, not going to the heavenly planets. Both bhukti and bhakti are possible. But this ‘just like/as’ is puzzling in regards to this deva-deha.

Answer: What is puzzling in this? Such people go to heaven and get suitable bodies similar to devas, the residents of heaven.

Question: Why similar to a deva? One gets a body *as* a demigod. To put your words as you phrased them for the sayujya mukta, but then for the bhogi it says yaiche = just as. It is like getting a deva deha , not actually getting it. So the correct meaning is that one will be situated (avasthiti) just like (yaiche) in a deva deha?

Answer:  Going to heaven does not mean one becomes a deva. Not everybody is a deva in heaven. So one gets a body similar to devas. What is the difficulty in understanding that?

Question: Caitanya-candrāmṛta (5) describes this merging into Brahman as hell (kaivalyaṁ narakāyate).  One is in some type of hell for eternity.

Answer: That is also not true. Please read carefully. It is hell for a devotee, not for the one who is in it. He wanted it. He got it. He is happy with it. But devotees consider it worse than hell, not even hell. Why? Because there is no bliss of doing seva in such a mukti. There is only brahmananada but no bhaktyananada or premananda. A devotee is not interested in brahmananda, so he considers it as hell or even worse than hell. There is a chance to come out of hell and be a devotee. But from brahma-sayujya there is no such possibility to come out. Thus a devotee considers it as worse than hell.

Question: You write, ‘no possibility to come out of brahma-sayujya’. There one is forever in some state of bliss– how is that possible, the soul wants ananda : ‘Variety is the mother of enjoyment/ the spice of life’. How can the soul be happy in homogeneousness?

Sanatana Gosvami in Brhad Bhagavatamrta 2.2.215 and commentary, describes the happiness in the brahmajyoti as plain, monotonous, undeveloped and so vague as to be virtually nonexistent. Here is the verse:

paraṁ samādhau sukham ekam asphuṭaṁ
vṛtter abhāvān manaso na cātatam
vṛttau sphurad vastu tad eva bhāsate
’dhikaṁ yathaiva sphaṭikācale mahaḥ

“The happiness felt in impersonal samādhi is plain, isolated, vague, and limited because in that samādhi the functions of the mind have ceased. But when the object of meditation appears in the active mind, that object is more vividly manifest, like sunlight reflected on a crystal mountain.”

COMMENTARY:

Thus if in impersonal samādhi any happiness is tasted, that happiness must be monotonous and undeveloped, so vague as to be virtually nonexistent.

Answer: Vague means indescribable. The word used is aspastam. It is so because in this state of samadhi there is no variety, no distinction of subject and object. It is monotonous but not non-existent. There are no manasic vrittis and thus no variety.

I gave the example of deep sleep. When you wake up from deep sleep, you can only say, “I slept happily”. If someone asks, “Can you describe your happiness?” there is nothing you can say. But happiness in Vaikuntha has variety and something can be said about it. So vague means no words to describe it.

As for “virtually non-existent” – I doubt that Sanatana Gosvami says it in the commentary. Please check the Sanskrit.

Question:  This ‘virtually nonexistent’ is a translation of ISKCON BBT. But then Bhakti rasamrta sindhu 1.1.38 says bliss of brahmananda accumulated by samadhi lasting for half of Brahma’s life cannot compare to a drop of the ocean of bhakti. How can one be eternally happy with that if there is something superior?

Answer: First try to understand what it means to have brahma-sayujya mukti. There is no mind, no intelligence, no body – physical or material. Thus there is no way to think or discriminate in this state. This is what Sanatana Gosvami is saying in the verse cited above. It is just like the state of deep sleep or going into coma. One can remain in coma for years. Like that one can be in brahma-sayujya forever. You can come out of deep sleep because you have a material body. But in brahma-sayujya there is no body – material or spiritual, so there is no possibility of coming out of it. Again, the only example I can give is that of deep sleep.

Question: Also 1.1.39 and 40 say brahmananda is as insignificant as water in the hoof print of a cow / as insignificant as grass, and Sri Jiva Gosvami comments that there are plenty of such statements. How did these souls get in that position of Brahman? It is an unlimited area of effulgence.

Answer: That is anadi, without a beginning. Just as there are unlimited jivas in the material world. How did they get here? It is all anadi.

Question: Did they get elevated / promoted from the earth planet or are they are eternally in it? Why put on such low happiness for eternity?

Answer: One can also go from here to brahma-jyoti. That is matter of personal choice. Why do some people commit suicide? It does not make sense to a normal person, but when one is frustrated, one choses to kill oneself. Similarly, some people decide to have brahmananada, being frustrated with material suffering and ignorant of the bliss of bhakti.

Question: Some souls are eternally designated for Vaikuntha, some for brahma-yjoti (from which they can never ever get out?), some are in the dungeon of Durga. And there is nothing these jivas did to deserve these states, while all the positions in the material world—naraka, bhauma, svarga– are due to papa, punya- something one did to get that.

Answer: Those who are in Vaikuntha are happy. Those in brahma-jyoti are also happy, brahmananada. Those in the material world are given the chance to be happy. Bhagavan comes here to teach us. You may object that those in brahma-jyoti are not enjoying. But they are also not suffering. Moreover, they do not make this comparison between them and bhaktas that you make.

Neither any jiva nor Bhagavan have done anything for a jiva to be in Vaikuntha, in brahma-jyoti or in the material world. So neither any jiva nor Bhagavan is to be blamed or praised for it. Some things are just the way they are. They are beyond logic (acintya). Only shastra is pramana, and nothing else.

 

10 Comments

  • advaitadas March 8, 2015

    Incredibly good, as always. I like to add that the Goswamis had a single agenda of promoting prema bhakti, which included putting down other paths for the sake of it.

    • snd March 8, 2015

      I would say that it is not the agenda of the Gosvamis but of Srila Vyasa in Bhagavata Purana. The Gosvamis only highlighted it. And if you go a step further, it was Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu who wanted it to be highlighted.

  • sri March 12, 2015

    Reading these Q&A interactions gives me immense joy. What is the nature of these sessions? Are they transcribed in gist from audio and if so, is the audio available also?

    • malati March 12, 2015

      Very rarely they are transcribed from audio and thus not available as such. Usually they are just individual written questions, as also in this case.
      However, if anyone out there is interested in transcribing Q & A from Babaji’s lectures for this section of the website, it would be very much welcome. Please contact me about the details.

  • saci dasi March 13, 2015

    In CC Madhya 6.269 I read that: “There are two kinds of sāyujya-mukti: merging into the Brahman effulgence and merging into the personal body of the Lord. Merging into the Lord’s body is even more abominable than merging into His effulgence.”
    My question is about which kind of sayujya-mukti we are here talking about?

    • malati March 13, 2015

      Babaji: The subject was Brahma-sayujya.

  • saci dasi March 15, 2015

    Prabhupada said in his purport (SB 7.1.35):” Such an impersonalist who takes shelter of the Brahman effulgence must surely fall down. This is stated in the śāstra (SB 10.2.32).And here is a verse SB 10.2.32:

    Someone may say that aside from devotees, who always seek shelter at the Lord’s lotus feet, there are those who are not devotees but who have accepted different processes for attaining salvation. What happens to them? In answer to this question, Lord Brahmā and the other demigods said:] O lotus-eyed Lord, although nondevotees who accept severe austerities and penances to achieve the highest position may think themselves liberated, their intelligence is impure. They fall down from their position of imagined superiority because they have no regard for Your lotus feet.”
    Can you please explain, what is the mean of this verse? Thanks.
    I Also have one more question. What is the difference beetween two kinds of sāyujya-mukti: merging into the Brahman effulgence and merging into the personal body of the Lord? (about destination)?

    • malati March 15, 2015

      Here is Babaji’s reply:

      > Can you please explain, what is the mean of this verse?

      This verse does not say that one falls down from Brahman effulgence. Even Prabhupada’s translation does not give that sense. He writes, “may think themselves liberated”. This means that they are not actually liberated. The verse uses the phrase vimukta-mAninah – “who think of themselves as liberated”. The meaning of the verses is that these non-devotees engage in some practice other than bhakti, such as controlling their senses, performing austerities and they attain some high material position of having some yogic powers or to attain the upper planets, but they fall down, i.e., lose their powers or position because of being offensive to Krishna, tvayyastabhAvAd. Prabhupada also translates, “They fall down from their position of imagined superiority”. This imagined superiority cannot be taken to be Brahman effulgence. There is no reason to accept such a meaning. Brahman effulgence is not an imagined position.

      > What is the difference beetween two kinds of sāyujya-mukti: merging into the Brahman effulgence and merging into the personal body of the Lord? (about destination)?

      Brahman has no manifest qualities or form. It is all-pervading. One who attains Brahma-sayujya considers oneself as Brahman and experiences brahmananada. One does not have any distinct identity. This experience, however, cannot be described because it is indeterminate. It has no variety in it. It is like the experience of deep sleep. You cannot describe the experience because there is no variety in it.
      In case of Bhagavad-sayujya, however, the person attaining it enters into the body of Bhagavan and identifies with It. One experiences the bliss that Bhagavan experiences through His senses.

    • Vraja Kishor March 16, 2015

      Praṇām!

      Kapila-deva also brings this up, as recording towards the end of Bhāgavatam’s Third Canto (32nd chapter, culminating in the teen-numbered ślokas). It is difficult to sort out from Prabhupāda’s translation alone, but the carefully studying the source material shows that Kapila clearly says this condition of “falling from liberation” happens to those who merge with Brahmā into the Puruṣa at the time of devestation but who did not annihilate their ahaṁkāra, and who therefore re-emerge to their karmic posts when the universe again becomes manifest and ready for life.

  • saci dasi March 18, 2015

    thanks for reply!

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