1. What is Nirvana, Enlightenment, or CeLiberation?

Nirvana is a term that is quite often used synonymously with Enlightenment. It is said that Nirvana is a liberation from all desires – the ultimate experience we all strive for, and the highest aim of life, according to major religions like Buddhism and Hinduism. Nirvana is the enlightened state in which one merges with the ultimate meaning of existence and lives in the state of non-duality from the ultimate Truth.

All these words sound so profound – ultimate meaning, ultimate truth, ultimate experience – but what does this ‘ultimate’ mean? What does it convey to me? Nothing! These words do not give me any idea of what the experience of non-duality or nirvana feels like.

That’s because words are only a string of arbitrary symbols – aural and visual codes that the mind has been taught to translate into meaning. We have been taught to believe that if we can describe something accurately with words then we ‘know’ it. But words can communicate experience only if the experience has already been ‘experienced.’ We can use words describing colour, music, and love because we have ‘known’ them directly through our senses and emotions. Nirvana or enlightenment is not an experience that one already has a reference for, and so words are not likely to convey any understanding of this ‘ultimate’ state.

Therefore, it is said, ‘He who knows, does not speak; He who speaks, does not know.’  The one who has experienced nirvana has no words for it; only the one who has merely read about it, can speak glibly about it, without knowing what it is.

After tasting the fruit, like a Banana or a Durian, there would be no need to ask what is its taste. And, even after tasting it, you will not be able to describe its taste! Likewise, nirvana too needs to be experienced before you can know what it is. But once you know, you will still not be able to describe it!

2. Isn’t it better to refer to the scriptures than run after enlightenment for oneself?

Truth is experienced first-hand. Reading about the second-hand experience given in the scriptures cannot give you the experience of Nirvana.

3. Tell me one good reason why should I chase Nirvana?I do not want to stop working and start chanting mantras, or becoming mindful or mindless in meditation.

You do not have to stop working; and you do not have to start meditating to experience Nirvana. And, after Nirvana you will work more efficiently and effectively, for work becomes fun.

Buddhists describe Nirvana as the experience of an emptiness, the void of shunyata, of no self – the blowing out of the flame of desires. In Hinduism, the ultimate state to aim for is the experience of aham brahmasmi, meaning I am brahman – in which there is stillness of mind and the flame of consciousness becomes steady and does not flicker!

4. Nirvana is described as the blowing out of the flame. Is it a blowing out of desire, or a blowing out of the self?

Can there be desires without the self? It is a blowing out of the self that desires.

5. Is there a difference between Hindu Nirvana and Buddhist Nirvana?

Seeking a distinction between Hindu Nirvana and Buddhist Nirvana would be just playing with words. Buddhist cosmology says that in the beginning there is Shunyata, the void, the emptiness that is the ground of all appearances. Hindu cosmology says in the beginning there is Brahman – the ground of all being – the one without attributes. So that too can be called the nothingness. The Buddhist void is not nothingness, but an undifferentiation out of which all apparent entities, distinctions, and dualities arise, and Buddhist Nirvana describes becoming liberated from everything that doesn’t really exist – which includes all, for all is nothingness. So too, in Hinduism, Nirvana is akin to zero, for the nirgun brahman is without any attributes. The important thing to note is that Nirvana needs to be experienced before one’s death, when the ‘desiring’ ego dies and merges with the bigger self – this bigger self being either the Buddhist shunyata or the Hindu nirgun brahman – both of which mean an undifferentiated all.

6. Is Nirvana synonymous with Salvation, or Moksha, or Jeevan-mukti?

Nirvana can be equated with Jeevan Mukti or Brahman-Gyan, which means being liberated from the bondages of life before death. Salvation and Moksha cannot be equated with Nirvana, for they refer to states that can be attained only after death.  Salvation is after death with a later rebirth in Heaven. Moksha is also after death, when the soul is liberated from the cycle of birth, death and rebirth and attains the state when all rebirths and re-deaths end. This explanation is to satisfy your intellect. What you should be questioning is  why we believe in the idea that there is a soul that needs to pass through a cycle of death and rebirth? It’s obviously our unacceptance of death as the dead end!

7. Why do different religions promote different processes for liberation?

Once we get the idea of a religion’s Cosmology, we can derive what process of liberation that religion would be advocating! Trapping oneself, and then patting oneself on the back on getting out of the trap! If we don’t fall in the trap, then there would be no need to seek escape.

But we are all trapped, for we all have a mind that wonders about its origins. We all need a cosmology to explain who we are and why the world exists. And religion tries to provide the answer.

Most of us are not explicitly taught a cosmology, but we imbibe it from our society and culture. We all have some concept of how the world came into being and why it arose and why we exist.  If we observe our thoughts and actions, our ideas of good and bad, of right and wrong, and our relationships with others and with the world, we would know the cosmology we are living with. As a child we innocently accept whatever Cosmology our parents or our society pushes down our throats. We blindly accept the cosmology that religions offer, and then, for the rest of our lives our highest aim is to find the way out of that fictitious trap! If we are repeatedly told that we all have an atman or soul, which gets trapped, through Karma, in a cycle of birth, death and rebirth; and then instructed that the aim of life is to get this soul liberated from this cycle, then we can blame only ourselves for this trap, for willingly swallowing this tale.

We conjure up a soul that needs to go hopping from body to body, birth after birth, and then confer upon it the ultimate aim of ending this cycle by merging with a universal soul. We are willing to suspend our rationality, and accept this ridiculous story, just because we are afraid to accept the straight and simple fact that death is the end. So, we willingly shut our eyes and accept the story of an immortal soul – and then we construct lies upon lies to hide the first lie. Death is the dead end. Why do you want it to be otherwise? Why do you crave rebirth, or reanimation? Why not actually experience immortality right now, while you are still alive, by dying before death?

It is death that compels us to become philosophical and religious. Philosophy and Religion are but the ‘off-springs of our tryst with death. It is ‘lowly’ death, and not ‘higher’ things, which compels us to use philosophy and religion to seek some explanation to the riddle of life. But what explanation can the loftiest philosophy offer except mental gymnastics to wriggle out of the fact that death is inevitable. And religions, at best, act as emotional tranquilisers to accept the situation, or trick us by offering a ‘free’ ride into some illusory after-life!

8. Could you define immortality in simple words?

Immortality is not a hypothetical concept like rebirth or reincarnation, nor is it an indefinitely extended lifespan. Immortality is a lived experience of being one with the ground of being – being one with the eternal truth – and experiencing that eternity. And it has to be experienced before one dies.

It is obvious that only the living can experience anything. Death can never be experienced by the one who dies, for to experience it he has to be alive. Only the ‘death before death’ that happens in CeLiberation, can be experienced.

It Is Not Some Illusory Soul That Has to Live After Death…
It Is Our Illusory Self That Has to Die Before Death!!”

From The book… Romancing the Truth…by Sanjay Grover

9. What do you experience when you experience immortality?

One needs to experience this ‘death before death’ first, and then experience immortality for oneself.  The experience of Immortality is just one of the many side-effects of the experience of CeLiberation.

10. How about simply using the word enlightenment than the words with religious linkages? What do you mean by CeLiberation?

If we move away from the religious word Nirvana and use enlightenment, that makes it neutral and agnostic. That is good. However, even that word conveys nothing about the experience! Rather, some people confuse enlightenment with the idea of ‘seeing some light, That is why I call this experience a CeLiberation. CeLiberation is a Celebration and a Liberation! The cascade of ‘enlightenment’ begins with the awakening to the falsehood of life, leading to the quest for truth, and culminates in the experience of the truth of non-duality.

CeLiberation is a Celebration of Completion, Bliss and Immortality (CBI), resulting from Liberation from the delusion of Attachment, Insecurity, Memory and Self (AIMS). CeLiberation is a package deal that consists of five major affects. And the side-effects of these five affects run into hundreds.

11. What are these ‘affects’ and ‘side-effects’ of enlightenment?

Side-effects sounds more like negative reactions to some drug – but the multitude of side-effects of enlightenment are all positive, with only one negative side-effect. Before we discuss these, we must first distinguish between Affects and Effects.