Can a person achieve Jivan Muktha state without vicharana?

Question

Is vicharana(thinking) a mandatory step for attaining Jivan Muktha state?

Is there any such example from scriptures that a person got Jivan Muktha state without any vicharana?

Answer 1

The questions are:

• Is vicharana(thinking) a mandatory step for attaining Jivan Muktha state?

• Is there any such example from scriptures that a person got Jivan Muktha state without any vicharana?

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Vicharana or pondering over an issue with a concentrated mind, is also called dhyAna alongwith Dharana.

Dharana (Sanskrit: धारणा) means concentration, introspective focus and one-pointedness of mind.

Dhyana (Sanskrit: ध्यान) literally means "contemplation, reflection" and "profound, abstract meditation". Dhyana is contemplating, reflecting on whatever Dharana has focused on.

Unless one ponders over the difference between SPIRITUAL aspects, which lay down firmly the futility of hanging on to physical relations and comforts and lay stress on the TRUTH called the Almighty, one will not be able to merge the mind into the BLISS aka SELF REALISATION.

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Yes, there are instances of a handful of few persons got the BLISS right from their birth, without going through the process the Vicharana or Dhyana.

1. Bṛhaddevatā mentions, in an esoteric sense, about Vāmadeva, a sage born in the state of SELF REALISATION.

2. Guru Charitra, a text eulogising the life of Sage Dattatreya and his incarnations, also mentions about Sripada Srivallabha and Sri Nrisimha Saraswati, being SELF REALISED from the birth itself.

Answer 2

Yes. The story of Jada Bharata shows that one can be a Jivan Mukta without vicharana.

As seen in this question, Jada Bharata was a king who fell into the rebirth cycle because he was attached to his deer, and ends up being born as one. Now in the next birth he was born in a brahmin family, but was a jivan mukta. He remembered his previous two births.

Text 1 and 2: My dear King, after giving up the body of a deer, Bharata Mahārāja took birth in a very pure brāhmaṇa family.

Text 3: Due to his being especially gifted with the Lord’s mercy, Bharata Mahārāja could remember the incidents of his past life. Although he received the body of a brāhmaṇa, he was still very much afraid of his relatives and friends who were not devotees. He was always very cautious of such association because he feared that he would again fall down. Consequently he manifested himself before the public eye as a madman — dull, blind and deaf — so that others would not try to talk to him. In this way he saved himself from bad association. Within he was always thinking of the lotus feet of the Lord and chanting the Lord’s glories, which save one from the bondage of fruitive action. In this way he saved himself from the onslaught of nondevotee associates.

Texts 9-10: Degraded men are actually no better than animals. The only difference is that animals have four legs and such men have only two. These two-legged, animalistic men used to call Jaḍa Bharata mad, dull, deaf and dumb. They mistreated him, and Jaḍa Bharata behaved for them like a madman who was deaf, blind or dull. He did not protest or try to convince them that he was not so. If others wanted him to do something, he acted according to their desires. Whatever food he could acquire by begging or by wages, and whatever came of its own accord — be it a small quantity, palatable, stale or tasteless — he would accept and eat. He never ate anything for sense gratification because he was already liberated from the bodily conception, which induces one to accept palatable or unpalatable food. He was full in the transcendental consciousness of devotional service, and therefore he was unaffected by the dualities arising from the bodily conception. Actually his body was as strong as a bull’s, and his limbs were very muscular. He didn’t care for winter or summer, wind or rain, and he never covered his body at any time. He lay on the ground, and never smeared oil on his body or took a bath. Because his body was dirty, his spiritual effulgence and knowledge were covered, just as the splendor of a valuable gem is covered by dirt. He only wore a dirty loincloth and his sacred thread, which was blackish. Understanding that he was born in a brāhmaṇa family, people would call him a brahma-bandhu and other names. Being thus insulted and neglected by materialistic people, he wandered here and there.