– Devavrata Sen Sharma
According to the Trika system, all sādhakas who have attained the knowledge of their Essence and have had the self-experience of aham, do not necessarily become disembodied immediately with the achievement of such knowledge. There are sādhakas who, after the achievement of the supreme knowledge and their establishment in their pure svarūpa, may continue to exist in embodied form for some time to come, provided they have previously ripened karma (i.e. prārabdha karma) sustaining their present embodied condition, and possess a keen desire for enjoyment (bhōgavāsanā). Such sādhakas, when enlightened, are said to become the jīvanmuktas. The jīvanmuktas do not live in a different world or walk about and behave differently from ordinary mortals. They exist, on the other hand, with ordinary mortals; they perform karma and participate in all activities of the world like ordinary mortals, yet their actions do not affect them. They remain as they are, emancipated beings. They perform karma only to keep themselves in embodied form and to satiate their desire for bhōga in this world, but in this process do not acquire any fresh karma. As soon as the fruits of their ripened or prārabdha karma which were sustaining them in their embodied form, are enjoyed and exhausted, they lose their body-apparatuses once for all and become one with the Supreme. They do not have further birth after the present one.
But all sādhakas cannot achieve this state, the state of jīvanmukti. Of the four distinct kinds of sādhakas into which the Trika system has broadly classified all the sādhakas from the point of view of their varying capacities and their being recipients of the śaktipāta in different degrees of intensity, the adhikārins of anupāya, for instance, are incapable of attaining this state of jīvanmukti. They are the recipients of a very intense form of śaktipāta, for which reason they are said to have their integral Self-realization in an instant as it were when their body-apparatuses fall off and they are firmly established in nirvikalpa svarūpa. Hence, the possibility of their attaining the state of jīvanmukti is not there at all.
In the case of the aspirants following śāmbhava upāya, the chances of their becoming jīvanmukta appear bright, though nothing definite can be said about them. The reason for such a view is not far to seek. After the descent of divine grace or śaktipāta in intense form, they stay in their physical body for a short time, but not as short as the aspirants following anupāya, viz., until the traces of mayīya and kārma malas are automatically destroyed and the revelation of the glory of their divine Self takes place. When the traces of the persisting veil of malas disappear, they are said to establish themselves in their pure nirvikalpa svarūpa, when their body-apparatuses automatically fall off. The destruction of the body apparatus is said to be essential for the perfect realization of śivatva. Hence, in their case, the possibility of attaining the state of jīvanmukti is there, though it might be for a short duration only.
In the case of the aspirants following the śākta upāya, however, the prospects of their attaining the state of jīvanmukti are very bright, because in their case the process of the dropping off of physical body is not immediate; it is a long-drawn affair. Being sādhakas of lesser capacity, and therefore possessing relatively less perfect body-apparatus when they receive the śaktipāta in relatively less intense form, they have the kārma and māyīya malas persisting in their body apparatuses even after the descent of divine grace. Hence, to realize their divine svarūpa, they have to exert and perform sādhanā as laid down under either of the two upāyas as the case may be. And when they succeed in their efforts, they have the śākta and āṇava samāvēśas respectively, but they do not at once become disembodied. They continue to exist for some time in embodied form, and it is during this period that they have the chance of attaining the state of jīvanmukti, provided they fulfill necessary conditions for its attainment and possess requisite qualifications.
There are three essential conditions that must be fulfilled by all sādhakas attaining the state of jīvanmukti. Firstly, the sādhakas should have the perfect realization of their true svarūpa in which they should also secure their perfect establishment. This, no doubt, implies the destruction of the false identification of Self with no-Self, the complete eradication of aśuddha vikalpa, with which the false ego-sense also disappears; in other words, the sādhakas should have the self-experience of aham in their pure svarūpa, the śuddha aham.
Second, the sādhakas must also possess pure bhōgavāsanā, which, is of two kinds – the bhōgavāsanā of śivadharmī bubhukṣu sādhakas, who aspire for enjoyment from elevated positions such as of the ādhikārika dēvatās, and the bhōgavāsanā of lōkadharmī bubhukṣu sādhakas, who do not desire any elevation but prefer to remain in this world as jnānins. It is the latter kind of sādhakas who are eligible for the attainment of jīvanmukti.
Lastly, the sādhakas should have the appropriate form of dīkṣā performed by the Guru. The Guru should perform the appropriate form of putraka dīkṣā so that the accumulated fruits of their past and present karmas become automatically destroyed. In doing so, the Guru should not, it is enjoined, destroy the karmabīja altogether, he should allow the ripened fruits of past karma, i.e., the prārabdha karma, to remain in their body apparatuses so that they might continue in their embodied form performing the meritorious deeds and enjoying the fruits thereof.
When the sādhakas attain liberation from their embodied forms, they do not achieve anything new or other than the establishment in their pure divine svarūpa. Hence, outwardly no change is noticeable in them though inwardly, of course, they undergo revolutionary changes which are mainly confined to their self-experience. They first experience themselves as pure Aham. They then experience the universe as their self-manifestation out of their free will, divine sport. As a result of this, they come “unembodied” (aśarīri) as it were, though their body does not fall off immediately. They continue to be associated with a body in the form of a thin veil (āvaraṇa) only, to fulfill their pure bhōgavāsanā and exhaust the prārabdha karma.
They perform karma like any ordinary unliberated individual, but they are said to be unaffected by the fruits. The reason for this is twofold: first, they are always conscious of their pure svarūpa which is not subject to ajñāna, and perform actions from their existence in their pure svarūpa. And second, as such, they have no false ego-sense, which is said to be the repository of the fruits of actions performed by them from the state of ignorance.
After exhausting the seeds of ripened karma and satiating their bhōgavāsanā through the performance of karma in this world, when in the end the jīvanmuktas are dissociated from their physical body-apparatus, they establish themselves firmly and perfectly in their integral divine svarūpa, and become the Supreme itself. This is the culminating stage of their existence, technically called the vidēha mukti.
The Trika system is purely a monistic system of philosophy, but it believes in both the theories of the unity and the plurality of souls (i.e. ēkajīvavāda and bahujīvavāda) from different points of view. Looking from the point of view of the manifested universe, it admits the plurality of jīvas and looking from the point of view of the Supreme Reality, it believes in the unity of all souls. In admitting both the unity and the plurality of souls at the same time, the Trika system does not think that there is any contradiction or incongruity involved in it, because in the Trika view, the multiplicity is only a self-projection and self-manifestation of the unity, which is the Supreme Lord, out of his free and independent will. The multiplicity of souls is, thus, in the Trika view, as real as the unity of the Supreme Lord; there is no inconsistency involved in the two.
This view holds good even in the field of Self-realization or liberation of individual souls, where the admission of both the theories of ēkajīvavāda and bahujīvavāda raises the important question of the salvation of the individual soul and that of all souls simultaneously. The Trika system, for instance, does not believe that there is really any contradiction between the emancipation of one soul and that of all souls. The ultimate fate of each of the souls is bound up with that of the rest, so that, strictly speaking, there can be no absolute liberation of one soul to the exclusion of the others. Consequently, the liberation of one is simultaneous with, if not identical with that of the rest. Hence what is generally looked upon as liberation achieved by one individual soul is not, strictly speaking, a full and complete liberation, the attainment of absolute perfection, it is only a partial liberation, a state of relative perfection. The achievement of absolute perfection or liberation is possible only when all souls achieve liberation or perfection simultaneously and are merged in the unity of the Supreme. Just as all the inner points of the radii of the circle are united in a common center, in the same way, the plurality of souls, when they achieve absolute liberation, are said to meet on the same ground and be united in the fundamental unity of the Supreme. This is the most supreme goal, the supreme destiny, the supreme end of all manifested beings.
This view is not an exclusive view of the Trika system; it is one that is shared and supported by many monistic systems of philosophy. The vēdāntin philosopher Appayya Dikshita, for instance, says that the perfect realization, which is a realization not of one soul but of all souls simultaneously, has not yet taken place. The highest limit of advance that the individual souls could make by securing their personal salvation is confined to the state of īśvara sāyujya. Unless all individuals simultaneously achieve their personal liberation or perfection, it will not be possible for them to achieve Absolute Perfection. Even in the Mahāyāna school of Buddhism, it is believed that the Buddha is still working for the liberation of entire humanity and that he will not enter into nirvāṇa until and unless the entire world accompanies him. The emancipation of the entire creation is the Goal, the Supreme destiny of mankind.