Mumukshhu - Part 1 of 8

Mumukshhu: Definition by the Acharya

One has to come out of this MAyA and become Brahman; this should be the only thought of the mind.

One who is thus totally involved in this manner is said to be a ‘mumukShu’. The Acharya in shloka #27(or 28) of Vivekachudamani gives this definition:

ahaMkArAdi dehAntAn bandhAn-ajnAna-kalpitAn /
sva-svarUpA-vabodhena moktum-icchA mumukShutA //

Here he talks about both the MAyA that has to be discarded and the Realisation of the Natural state, that one experiences after the release from the MAyA.

Ignorance itself is MAyA.

It is because of MAyA that Ego is imagined as an ‘I’ distinct from the Supreme Self. This ego is the source of all the hierarchy of errors.

The hierarchy starts in the form of that ego as a subtle thought and ends up with an individualised ego in every physical (sthUla) JIva. What thinks of the body as oneself is the action of MAyA.

The JIva has been bound by imagined bondages right from the subtle ahamkAra down to the concrete physical body. This is what is said in the first line of the verse above.

(Continued...)