Samaj Hi Moksha Hai — Understanding Itself Is Liberation

What if liberation is not something to achieve, but something to understand?

I want you to contemplate upon just one simple thing, perhaps one of the simplest yet most profound things you will ever encounter in your life. Everything you have ever had, everything you have ever experienced, everything you call your own has been given to you. Yes, literally everything. Your body, your mind, your thoughts, your emotions, your family, your intelligence, your beauty, your talents, the language you speak, the country you were born in and even the beliefs you hold so dearly today. Just contemplate upon this for a moment. Did you choose your body? Did you choose the family you were born into? Did you consciously decide which thought would arise in your mind five seconds from now? No, my friend, all of it has been given to you. You have been receiving since the very moment you came into this existence.

And yet something extraordinary happens as we grow up. We start claiming ownership over everything we receive. This is MY body, MY intelligence, MY knowledge, MY money, MY achievements, MY beliefs, MY identity. Just look at how beautifully the ego constructs itself. Something that was given to us becomes something we identify as ourselves, and then we spend our entire lives defending it, protecting it, comparing it with others and becoming miserable whenever something threatens to take it away. But tell me one thing, if everything has been given to you, what exactly is yours to hold on to?

This is where I feel the entire mystery of liberation begins revealing itself. Samaj hi moksha hai. Understanding itself is liberation. Not intellectual understanding, not merely agreeing with something because you read it in a scripture or heard it from some guru, but understanding it from the core of your heart, the core of your existence, so deeply that it becomes impossible to live in the same ignorance again. If everything has been given to us, then what are we really? What remains when we remove everything we have received? Our body was given, our mind was given, our memories were formed through experiences, our thoughts keep appearing and disappearing. Keep removing everything that can be observed, everything that can change, everything that can be acquired or lost. Neti neti. Not this, not this.

And what remains?

Shunya. Zero. Nothing that you can point towards and say, this is mine, this is what I am.

Now don't confuse this nothingness with worthlessness or the absence of existence. What I am pointing towards is something much more beautiful. You are empty of all these identities you have been carrying around your entire life. You need not cling to any of them as your ultimate nature. And if you have nothing to hold on to, what is there to fear losing? If you are not fundamentally your possessions, achievements, thoughts or even the identity you have built around yourself, then why in God's name should losing any of them destroy your inner peace?

Take a simple example. Imagine two people who have spent ten years building successful businesses. Both suddenly lose everything due to circumstances beyond their control. One person is devastated, not merely because he has lost his money but because he has lost what he believed himself to be. He was a successful businessman, a wealthy individual, someone admired by society, and now that identity has collapsed. The other person also experiences sadness, disappointment and the practical difficulties of losing his livelihood, but somewhere deep within he understands that his business was something he created and experienced, not the totality of who he is. He can grieve, learn, start again and continue living. The external event may be the same, but their relationship with it is entirely different. This, I feel, is where detachment becomes so beautiful.

We often misunderstand vairagya as renouncing everything, abandoning our desires, running away from society or forcing ourselves not to care about material things. Nah my friend, why should you run away from this beautiful existence? Earn money, build extraordinary things, fall in love, travel the world, fulfil your dreams, experience everything your heart desires while respecting the freedom of others. But just remember that none of these things are your permanent identity. They are experiences you have received and participated in. Enjoy them fully when they are present and learn to let them go when their time has passed. Play the game with totality, but don't become a prisoner of the game.

And this is precisely why I find the concept of ego so fascinating. We keep imagining ego as arrogance, superiority or thinking highly of oneself, but I feel its roots go much deeper. The ego begins the moment we start associating our fundamental identity with something temporary. I am my body, I am my profession, I am my beliefs, I am my success, I am my suffering. And once we have constructed this identity, we naturally become afraid of anything that threatens it. Someone criticises our beliefs and we feel personally attacked. Someone becomes more successful and suddenly we feel inferior. Someone leaves us and we feel as though a part of our existence has been taken away. But what has really happened? Something we had received, something we had made a part of our identity, has changed. And because we had forgotten its temporary nature, we suffer.

Now just imagine a person who has truly comprehended this from within. Not someone who has memorised these words but someone for whom this understanding has become as natural as breathing. What would such a person have to defend? Why would he feel superior to another individual when even his intelligence, talents and circumstances are things he has received through existence? Why would he feel inferior when he understands that none of these things determine his fundamental worth? Why would he spend his life constantly comparing himself with others when everyone is simply experiencing this same mysterious existence through different bodies, different minds and different circumstances?

And isn't this where equanimity comes naturally? We constantly advise people to treat everyone equally, remain unaffected by success and failure, become humble and cultivate detachment, but we rarely help them understand why. We turn these beautiful qualities into another set of responsibilities, another list of things people must remember while living their lives. But once this understanding flowers within someone, what is there to force? Humility, gratitude and equanimity can begin arising naturally because the very foundation of possessiveness has been questioned.

This is what fascinates me about Advaita Vedanta and the method of neti neti. Instead of adding more and more identities to ourselves, we begin removing the false identification with everything we can observe. I am aware of my body, so let me inquire whether I am merely this body. I am aware of my thoughts, so let me inquire whether I am merely these thoughts. I can observe anger arising and disappearing, happiness arising and disappearing, even my sense of identity changing over time. So who is the one aware of these changes? Don't rush to answer this intellectually. Sit with it. Meditate upon it. Look within yourself and investigate.

And there's something even more beautiful here. In Advaita, this negation does not end in the conclusion that nothing whatsoever exists. It points towards the awareness that cannot be reduced to the changing objects of experience. When I speak of shunya, of becoming zero, I mean becoming empty of the identities and attachments we mistake for our ultimate self. Whether one calls what remains Atman, consciousness, the witness or something else, the name is not the experience. You have to discover what these words are pointing towards for yourself.

Now look at how this connects with Swatantrya, my philosophy of Total Freedom. If I am not fundamentally bound to any passing identity, then I am free to experiment with life. Today I might be a scientist, tomorrow an artist, another day a philosopher. I might succeed, I might fail, I might discover that everything I believed yesterday was incomplete. But why should any of this imprison me? Why should I spend my entire existence trying to protect an identity that is constantly changing anyway? Become like a child again, curious about everything, attached to no permanent image of yourself, ready to receive whatever this magnificent universe has to offer.

And this doesn't mean becoming irresponsible or believing that our actions cannot hurt anyone. The body experiences pain, people depend upon us and our choices have consequences. Understanding that we are not merely our temporary identities should make us more compassionate towards others, not indifferent to their suffering. We can care deeply for the world without making our inner existence dependent upon controlling everything that happens within it.

So here's what I want you to try. During your next meditation, instead of trying to become peaceful or attain some extraordinary spiritual state, simply contemplate upon everything you believe belongs to you. Your body, your mind, your knowledge, your achievements, your relationships, your beliefs. Look at each one and ask yourself: Was this always mine? Could this change? Can I observe it? And if I can observe it, is it the entirety of who I am? Keep going, neti neti, not this, not this. Not to reject life but to remove the ignorance that makes you cling to every passing experience as though your very existence depends upon it.

I feel this is one of the most beautiful possibilities of spiritual understanding. That liberation may not require us to travel anywhere, acquire something extraordinary or become someone greater than we already are. Perhaps what is needed is the complete recognition of something so simple that we have overlooked it our entire lives.

We have always been the receiver. Everything we call our own has come into our experience, and everything we cling to can change. So what exactly are we holding on to?

Understand this not merely with your intellect but with your whole existence, and perhaps you will discover that the freedom you have been searching for was never something you needed to acquire.

Samaj hi moksha hai, my friend. Understanding itself is liberation.

And once you understand, what is left to do but live, love, create and play this beautiful game of existence in totality? ❤️✍🏻