Bandh (Bondage) and Mukti
(Liberation or Complete Freedom from All Kaunas)
Chapter-21
The living creature (animate) himself invites bondage. He creates the cycle of transmigration by his own dispositions and also takes off the fetters of transmigration by his own thoughts.
A hunter brought a parrot confined in a cage to sell in the market. I asked the hunter, “Why has it been confined in the cage?” The hunter replied, “Sir, it itself has chosen this bondage.” I again asked, “How! The hunter replied, “It has two wings which help it to fly freely in the sky but out of greed for grains it holds the rope tightly with its paws. The rope does not catch it or hold it, conversely it wants to hang on the rope, and not to fly.”
In the same way no one can keep this “Jeeva” in bondage. Because of its contractual attachment and emotions, it has defined pleasure as being fastened with the invisible rope of “moha ” (attachment).
Achharya Shanti Sagar Ji had explained the bandh and mukti through an allegory.
Four friends started for a long journey through various countries. All the four friends were experts in their respective subjects, arts and architects. They were passing through a dense forest. At the advent of night they decided to take rest in the jungle. But there was no measure for their safety.
After consultation they decided that each one of them would be awake in turns for three hours and look after the luggage apart from being watchful of wild animals. The first friend was an expert in the wood work. The specialization of his art was to give any shape to barren wood.
He began to think as to how he would pass these three hours all alone? He saw a piece of dry wood in the jungle. He also wanted to assess the skill of his craft whether he could shape that wood into a lion during the three hours? Confluence of curiosity and be placed on the rock, the other wild animals would not come there.
The piece of wood was transformed into the shape of a lion. It was now the turn of the second friend to be awake. He was an expert in the art of drawing and painting. He saw that his predecessor had given a shape of lion to the wood. “I shall give expression to its limbs and organs by colours. Thus it would be a good use of time in these three hours.
He gave a form to that wooden lion like a real one using his colours. The third friend was a scholar and an expert in incantation. He had the capacity of giving life to an inanimate by his incantation. He noticed the art of his two friends and decided to infuse life into the form of the lion to assess the power of his incantation. With the power of incantation the inert lion became active. Seeing its movements, he climbed a tree and called all the other companions to climb up. By that time the lion had transformed into a ferocious form.
The fourth friend was a wizard and an intelligent person. He thought that his three friends had themselves invited the crisis and climbed the tree for the safety of their lives. Within no time he ascertained that the lion was leaping and jumping because of the influence of incantation of the third friend.
He asked his third friend, “Why do you fear? You yourself have installed life in that wooden body by the influence of your incantation; you must know counter-incantation of the one by which you installed life in it. You should now withdraw your incantation power and it will again become inanimate.”
The power of the incantation had created that crisis and only that could control it. ‘
The prudence of the incantation-person awakened hearing the words of the wizard. He immediately tested counter incantation and that terrible form of the lion became lifeless (inanimate).
Understand the mystery behind this example. The jeeva infuses life in the lion-like crisis by its own passions and aversions. But if he so wishes he can destroy lion-like karma by keeping away from passions and aversion. ‘Karmas’ are in fact lifeless which can’t cause any harm to us provided passion and aversion are destroyed.
The incantation of mukti too is in our hands as also the incantation of bandhan and crisis. All depends on our prudence, vitality and striving for restraint. We are the masters of the incantation of the bandhan as well as of the mukti. No one else can either bond or liberate us.
The culprit himself invites bondage of the prison. The prison is not our home. A person strongly wishes to be released even from a well-facilitated prison. But he has to remain there tilt the expiry of his punishment. A jeeva creature is compelled to sojourn in the prison-like universe till the duration of his “Aayu” (Age)-karma.
But even the criminal gets curtailment in the duration of his punishment by his good conduct. He gets an early release. Don’t take bondage as inherent/basic attribute (nature). Bondage may be facilitative, but the steps to peace, and pleasures are not there.
Mukti is absolute or limitless. Mukti embraces even the sky in its arms. Only a mukta-jeeva (liberated soul) can experience the pleasures and immortality of the mukti (liberation).