What is Moksha?

Moksha is popularly believed as freedom from samsara. What is meant by freedom from samsara? It is the cycle of birth and death from beginning less time otherwise known as transmigration and a is putting an end to this. To make this body the last one (charama) so that there is no punarjanmam as highlighted in all devotional songs and known as lougika moksha. If this is popular is there something else?. Yes, there is a second one known as sAstrIya moksha which is trikAla janma nivriti that is freedom from all the three periods of time. It is also known as amrutatva prapti. Then what are the two types of moksha and what are their differences?
lougika moksha is known as ahankAra driShtyA (from the stand point of ego) moksha which rises due to the misconception/mistaking the bmi (body, mind,and intellect) to be the Atma otherwise known as ego. How is this achieved? It is achieved by managing all the karmAs and destroying all the saMnchita and agAmi karmAs while exhausting the prArabda karmAs after which the ahankArA merges with Brahman, a sAdhyam. sAstra prescribes several conditions to be followed like the sAdhana chatuShtaya sampatti and expanded to many religious conditions like the twent six virtues that  are both ethical and spiritual disciplines. Moksha thus accomplished thus is called sAbeksha moksha

SAstrIya mokshA is from the stand point of Atma (the real I ) and called Atma drishtyA moksha. AtmA by nature is free and is not something to be accomplished in future, it is sidhdham-already there as the witness consciousness, as satchidAnanda swarUpam. Whatever is natural is absolutely unconditional, called nirabeksha moksha

 Now which one should one pursue? It is said that even advanced students has this confusion and it is resolved by the sAstrAs that take us from ignorance to knowledge of the self by which all the misconceptions go away. ahankAra being born out of ignorance is negated and hence no question of moksha by ahankAra drishtyA. Actually it is a transition from ahankAra drishtyA to Atma drishtyA and realise yourself that you are not the manas, budhdhi, ahankArA and that you are ever the chidAnanda rUpa sivam.

When you say asatoma sadgamaya it is a spiritual journey from false to reality. When you say tamasoma jyothirgamaya it is transition from ignorance to knowledge. When you say mrityoma amrithamgamaya it is from ahankAra drishti mokshA to Atma drishti mokshA. How and at what level this takes place? When you are young you look at life as an asset and you are attracted towards lougika mokshA where as when you are old you prefer the sAstrIya mokshA. So the guru takes from lougika mokshA to sAstrIya mokshA in five stages that are Karma yoga, upAsanA yogA, SravaNa yoga, Manana yoga, and nidiyAsana yoga. Karma yoga is a life style of religious practice of all virtues that gives you chitta sudhdhi.  Meditating on the iShta devata and later visualizing the viswarUpa is upAsana yoga that focuses and expands your mind. sravaNa yogA is studying under a guru systematically and consistently doing the Atma anAtma vichArA. manana yoga is removing all the doubts to realize yourself as the Atma, a conviction of the knowledge. nidityAsana yoga is changing the perspective and out look, based on the knowledge so gained and elimination of the habitual thinking. The switching from lougika to sAstrIyA takes place in the 5^th stage, getting convinced of the sAstric vision. Never think of freedom from punarjanma that is invalid. Even the jIvan mukti and videha mukti is equally invalid since once the knowledge gained at this stage one is an ever accomplished nitya muktA. A nitya MuktA continues with all the disciplines as before and does that not as moksha sAdhanam but for loka sangraha taking a sankalpa accordingly. End of spiritual sAdhana is nitya moksha. May Lord Dakshinamurthy bless us all to become nitya mukta-s.

P.S.: Written from the notes taken of Swami Paramarthananda's lecture on 25^th July, on the occasion of gurpUrnima day. Any mistakes in the above writing are mine and should not be attributed to swamiji.