Darshan of Swami Krishnananda in 1998

by Swami Krishnananda

22. Moksha and Rebirth

(Darshan given on August 1st, 1998)

Swamiji: I was interested to read the article on moksha in the EOI, written by Chakravarty Badrinath. The learned writer makes out that the concept of moksha involves belief in rebirth, and those religions which do not believe in rebirth, to those religions moksha has no meaning. It just does not exist.

The fact about the matter seems to be this: The fear of rebirth is a corollary following from another, deeper factor, which is often missed by people in their enthusiasm to give special emphasis to some aspect of religion or other.

Moksha need not be associated with any religious concept. Even if no religions exist in the world in the form of the denominational faiths that are prevalent in the world today, moksha, a Sanskrit name indicating absolute freedom, cannot be gainsaid. Freedom is actually freedom from the finitude of individuality. In this sense, even an ant is not free, let alone a human being, because all these created beings are limited in one way or the other or in every way, in many cases. It is not that only human beings should have moksha. It is a necessity for every living being.

Here, the concept of the finite is to be explained. The finite is necessarily perishable because of its involvement in the evolutionary process of the cosmos, which itself is a phenomenal manifestation of the action of space and time. All bondage is due to the involvement of oneself in the peculiar operation of the space-time complex. No one who has not overcome the limitations of space and time can expect to have moksha. Any amount of thinking of freedom by a prisoner within the four walls of a jail will not bring him freedom from imprisonment unless the causes of the fact of imprisonment are discovered and overcome. In a similar manner, the concept of moksha is to be envisaged as a highly metaphysical problem and not as a religious question. Every individual is involved in a lower nature of being pulled by the earthly forces and the higher nature which pushes the individual to gravitate towards a greater universality of experience.

Thus, moksha is not a Hindu idea. It is valid to every human being, everyone who feels the pinch of limitation physically, mentally, intellectually, socially, politically, or in any other way. This is to say that unless one transcends time and space, moksha is not possible.

[Later on]

Swamiji: Plato tried to bring heavenly conditions into the mortal world. There he did not succeed.

A visitor: He failed in the experiment itself instead of solving...

Swamiji: In the heavenly world, everything is all right. There is no law and regulation. But here, a hundred types of rules and regulations are there. One of the things that irks people is his doctrine of the community of property. It is the thing that was adumbrated later on by Karl Marx also, but there is a great difference between Plato saying and Marx saying. Marx was concerned only with the economic aspect of the world, but Plato was a spiritual man. The idea of the good should determine everything.

Where he went wrong, if at all you call it a wrong thing, is in the insistence on community of property and communism of women also. There he forgot the difference between the heavenly kingdom and the earthly kingdom. Human beings have their own emotional affirmations. If there are no husbands and no wives, and nobody owns anything, in a way it seems to be a very grand concept. But in another way it is a stupid thing to say that. It won't work in this world. It cannot. You have no property, you have no belonging, because all property is everybody's. A highly noble concept it is, but in the human world it cannot work due to the fragile emotions of human beings.

And another thing, the philosopher king is a great ideal, but it is impossible to expect one human being to be so comprehensive that he entertains in his mind the entire world. We have got examples of Vikram Aditya, and so on, but even then they have got their own problems. There are vicious behaviours. It is generally said that Vikram Aditya is the same as Chandragupta II of the Gupta period. They identify Chandragupta II with him. But, if you believe in history, this Chandragupta II killed his brother, who was Ramagupta, and married the widow of this dead person. She was called Dhurva-devi. How did that lady agree to marry a person who has killed her own husband? This is also a great wonder. But he is considered as an ideal, like Rama's kingdom. Human frailty continues till one becomes ashes, so you cannot rule the world as Indra rules heaven.

All the women in the heavenly kingdom are eternal virgins. They cannot be spoiled. Can you imagine eternal virgins? They are like fire. Fire cannot be polluted. Their body is made up of the fire element, not the earth element. But that law will not apply to this mortal world.

So the grand concept of Plato, which is astoundingly absorbing for a philosophical mind, makes one nod the head. Why laws which are only applicable to heaven he brought to the earth? He wanted to implement this doctrine, and the first person whom he contacted was the king of Sicily, and he went on giving sermons to him on the ideal government. He went on hearing, but a king is an arrogant man. All kings are like that. Their strength is in the sword. And so the result of this interference by Plato's ideology ended in imprisoning Plato himself. He said, “Get rid of this man.” Too much virtue ends in some terrible thing.

There was an Archbishop of Canterbury, called Thomas Beckett, during the time of Henry II, king of England, and this Thomas Beckett was giving a sermon to him. “You must be an ideal king, ideal king.” He went on hearing this. One day this pestering by Thomas Beckett, the Archbishop of Canterbury, irritated the king. He just, in a mood, said, “Will not my cowardly servant get rid of this priest?” They went and beheaded him, the servant. So this is the result of too much religiosity applied to a wrong place. You go and tell the tiger, give sermons on ahimsa, “You should not kill cows”; he will eat first yourself before going to the cows. You must be very cautious. You cannot neglect the world and imagine that you are in heaven.

Visitor: And later on Plato also realised his ideal state cannot be put into practice.

Swamiji: That's why he said the ideal state is in heaven only.

The reconciliation of the world with God is the problem of life. It may be Plato or Hegel or whoever it is. How do you reconcile such obvious contraries as the world and God? The world is totally external to you, and uncontrollable. But God is not external to you. How a non-external Infinity can be reconciled with a totally external thing? Here everybody fails.

Aristotle taught philosophy to Alexander. He was a vicious young boy. He went on hearing this lecture of Aristotle. One day, he got irritated at the sermons. He blurted something: “The sword of the king is mightier than the brain of the philosopher.” Aristotle got disgusted and threw him out. Afterwards he never talked to him.

So we should not go to extremes in anything. Meditate on Brahman; they go mad afterwards by meditating on Brahman and all those things.

Anyway, you are philosophers, so I feel happy to see you.