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| Home > Hatha Yoga and our Body > The notion of Moksha
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| | The notion of Moksha
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 "He, who never has the thought of "I" with regard to the body and the senses and the thought of `this` in respect of something different to the Absolute, is regarded as a jivan-mukta." (Sankara in Viveka-Chudamani).
The basic uses of Body as a vessel has been explained:
Firstly, for the purpose of gaining life experiences,
Secondly, for gaining access to more refined modes of self-identity.
Both of these senses, however, relate to the unenlightened yogi.
But what happens to the body once enlightenment is achieved?? What is its use??
According to Indian ideology, spiritual advancement is regarded as going hand-in-hand with ethical development. And according to the ethical code, the perfected yogi is held to become a source of virtue for the betterment of all. Having aligned his or her perceptive faculties with truth, the yogi is then able to manifest dharma the divine law or correct `order` of things upon the material plane.
As the Bhagavad-Gita states, for example, the Self-realised person does not cease to perform actions, but performs them `without attachment (i.e. without self-interest`. Lord Krisna gives to Arjuna the following descriptions:
"Identifying himself with the selves of all creatures... without hatred of any creature, friendly and compassionate, without possessiveness and self-pride, equable in happiness and unhappiness, tolerant, contented, mastering himself, resolute in decisions, who is free from jubliation, impatience, fear and vexation, independent, skilfull, impartial, unruffled, neither hates nor rejoices, does not mourn nor banker, remains the same towards friend or foe, in honour or dishonour,...devoid of all self-interest,...equal when praised or blamed,... firm of mind such a man is dear to me."
One who has achieved this condition of `embodied liberation` is known as a jivanmukta, and the condition itself as Jivanmukti. In hatha-yoga, once practitioners have reached this pinnacle of attainment, they will often serve humanity by becoming teachers themselves, and in this way the guru-Shishya tradition is perpetuated.
Although, the enlightened Yogi`s outlook on the world of objective experiences is thoroughly transformed. He looks upon everything, within and without, from the standpoint of the Truth of the Absolute Experience.
Paramahansa Yogananda declares full Self-realisation to be entirely compatible with mundane existence. For Yogananda, the realised yogin does not need to `descend...to the plane of relativity` in order to carry out activities involving the mind, body and senses, but is able to live, as it were, on two levels` or in two `worlds`, the absolute and the conditional-simultaneously.
The accounts of the ultimate state the body as inert and the mind and senses passive. In the final chapter of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, for example, we read that:
"There is no doubt that the yogi who has transcended all states and all cognitive operations, and who appears as though dead, is liberated."
"The yogi who is firmly absorbed in samadhi has no sense of self or other; nor does he smell, taste, touch or hear. " (Hath Yoga Pradipika)
Brahmananda comments that "in samadhi there is no experience of sense or objects", and relates this state to one of suspended animation or complete motionlessness, in which the yogin appears to be asleep (supta), yet remains fully awake. With the flow of breath having ceased, the yogi`s body resembles a corpse, but due to the complete retention of prana, the yogi could be said to be more alive than at any other time. Nowhere do the main hatha manuals themselves touch upon what occurs, or ought to occur, after this blissful Samadhi has been arrived at (presumably, to anyone who gets there, the answer will be obvious).
In study of the Tamil Siddha tradition of southern India, followers are noted for their employment of hatha techniques using the terminology of alchemy to describe the practice of these yogis.
It involves the `transmutation` or `transubstantiation` `of the corruptible into the incorruptible body`. The aim being `to kill death` and to bind body and consciousness together. The intention is not so much to transcend the physical body, as to reach a state where the distinction between consciousness (or the true Self) and substance is transcended.
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