Moksha is a concept, just like life after death & re-birth. We have various incidents where some child remembers things about previous life. Looking at these incidents we conclude that there may be life after death. Can anyone provide similar proofs that any human being has attained Moksha? Any sign, any scriptures providing signs of proof that a human being has attained Moksha after his death?
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1what you mean by Proof in this context?– AADHinduismCommented Aug 10, 2016 at 8:09
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@WhisperingMonk- I have edited the question for you. Thank you.– SudipSCommented Aug 10, 2016 at 14:01
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3There are countless stories in scripture which describes Moksha attained by various humans... but don't know whether this becomes a proof for you or not...– TezzCommented Aug 10, 2016 at 14:04
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Yes, if you ever got the blessing to associate yourself with a Self-realized Saint, then you will at once realize the peace of mind, the complete control over one's senses, the absolute bliss and the incredible love that emanate from a Saint of such realization. Such saints (Sri Ramakrishna, for example) are living examples. All the best– SaiCommented Aug 10, 2016 at 18:12
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1Why wait until death? Why not while living? The proof of moksha is in one's own direct perception of It. Until then it is all indirect. Anyone else's perception of moksha is no help to you. Only your own direct perception will help you. The way to perceive It is through hearing (sravanam), reflecting (mananam), and meditating (nididhyasanam).– Swami VishwanandaCommented Aug 11, 2016 at 8:30
2 Answers
There are no signs or proofs that a person has attained moksha after death to the ordinary person. Similarly, there is no sign or proof that a living man has attained moksha. In his Pancadasi, Sri Vidyaranya Swami says (VI. 287-288):
Enlightened men may differ in their behavior because of the nature of their fructifying Karma. This should not make the learned think otherwise about the truth of knowledge resulting in liberation.
Let the enlightened people behave in any way according to their fructifying Karma, but their knowledge is the same and their liberation is the same.
and in his commentary on the first verse, verse 287, Swami Swahananda says:
There is no uniform rule about how a knower will behave. A well-known verse says: 'Krishna lived a life of enjoyment, Suka renounced even before Vedic initiation, vast empires were ruled by Rama and Janaka and Vasistha was a great ritualist, but all of them had the same illumination.'
And in the Introduction to Swami Swahananda's translation of the Pancadasi, T.M.P. Mahadevan says:
The final court of appeal is experience,--the plenary experience, which is the fruit of inquiry. In fact, the texts of scripture are but indicators of that experience. Thus, in Vedanta, the nature of Truth is sought to be expounded on the triple basis of scripture [hearing], reasoning [reflecting], and experience [meditating] (srutyuktyanubhutibhyah, V, 56, & XI, 89).
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Vivekananda, Very nice answer. Though it does not answer my question directly, this is by far the nearest one can get to understanding Moksha. You see, i think the same way, no 2 persons are the same, hence their thoughts, experiences & sense of enlightenment can not be same. Hence the concept of Moksha has to be different for both. As far as the 'leaving the birth-death cycle' is concerned, i think that is a myth which no one can prove. The theory of evolution can be a clue to this mystery.– SudipSCommented Aug 11, 2016 at 12:55
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1"sense of enlightenment can not be same" It is same, read the above verse, it says realized beings may behave differently but all of them had the "same illumination".– PinakinCommented Aug 12, 2016 at 4:46
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Nice answer! Indeed, there is no symptoms or "fixed" way/situation related to Moksha. An exact Gita sloka is related to this states that: "Even learned (intelligents) men also act according to their modes of material nature, then why to have reservations?" Commented Aug 20, 2016 at 14:02
I am posting below Swami Vivekananda’s initial experiences reported by Swami Nikhilananda’s introductory essay in his book ‘The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna’.
During his second visit, about a month later, suddenly, at the touch of the Master, Narendra felt overwhelmed and saw the walls of the room and everything around him whirling and vanishing. "What are you doing to me?" he cried in terror. "I have father and mother at home." He saw his own ego and the whole universe almost swallowed in a nameless void. With a laugh the Master easily restored him. Narendra thought he might have been hypnotized, but he could not understand how a monomaniac could cast a spell over the mind of a strong person like himself. But during his third visit Narendra fared no better. This time, at the Master's touch, he lost consciousness entirely. .... A few more meetings completely removed from Narendra's mind the last traces of the notion that Sri Ramakrishna might be a monomaniac or wily hypnotist. ... ..Narendra, because of his Brahmo upbringing, considered it wholly blasphemous to look on man as one with his Creator. One day at the temple garden he laughingly said to a friend: "How silly! This jug is God! This cup is God! Whatever we see is God! And we too are God! Nothing could be more absurd." Sri Ramakrishna came out of his room and gently touched him. Spellbound, he immediately perceived that everything in the world was indeed God. A new universe opened around him. Returning home in a dazed state, he found there too that the food, the plate, the eater himself, the people around him, were all God. When he walked in the street, he saw that the cabs, the horses, the streams of people, the buildings, were all Brahman. ..... It took him a number of days to recover his normal self. He had a foretaste of the great experiences yet to come and realized that the words of the Vedanta were true.
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna translated by Swami Nikhilananda
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nice but how does it prove that Ramakrishna or Naren attained moksha after death?– SudipSCommented Aug 11, 2016 at 8:27
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1Tezz has already stated the correct position that there are countless stories about humans attaining moksha but it is up to you to accept or reject such stories as proof. I just posted one such story. The claim is that Vivekananda got a tatse of moksha while he was alive. Commented Aug 11, 2016 at 12:56
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I must criticize this foolish idea. If we were GOD, why can't we create miracles by ourselves? This is wrong theory , someone please remove it. Commented Nov 11, 2016 at 7:43
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2@ParthTrivedi There is a very large number of people who believe that we are God. It's called Advaita, and it's the philosophy of Adi Shankaracharya and his followers. And Advaitins have an explanation for why most people can't create miracles: it's because we still have Avidya and thus we don't realize our true nature. Now I happen to disagree with Advaita (I believe in Ramanujacharya's philosophy of Visistadvaita), but there's certainly no reason to remove or flag posts just because they favor Advaita. Commented Nov 13, 2016 at 15:51