“Causality and Liberation in Advaita: Why Mokṣa Cannot Be Produced”, Indica Today, June 04, 2026
“Human experience unfolds within an ordered system of cause and effect. Every event appears to arise from previous conditions. Actions have consequences, effort produces results, and seeds give rise to trees. Existential reflection therefore assumes that identifiable causes result in significant transformations. In the Indic intellectual tradition, this logic of cause and effect appears to extend to spiritual life as well. Naturally, mokṣa, the highest objective of human existence, might be understood as a result of the cessation of bondage. This has been articulated in different ways in later Vedāntic literature. For instance, the Vedāntasāra expresses this laconically in मोक्षो नाम बन्धनिवृत्तिः — that liberation is the termination of bondage (Sadānanda Yogīndra, 15th century). Such explanations highlight the phenomenological attribute of mokṣa as the freedom from human conditions of bondage, or saṃsāra.
The Problem of Bondage
However, if mokṣa can be attained through freedom from bondage, then a cave-dwelling ascetic, away from the world, must be nearly liberated. Yet this conclusion proves untenable. This raises a deeper philosophical inquiry: why does withdrawal from the world not produce liberation? The answer lies in the fact that bondage does not originate from external circumstances, but in the way the circumstances are perceived by the mind. These perceptions are internalised as impressions in the mind, and they continue to shape one’s experiences well beyond the circumstances. This is the reason that termination of worldly limitations may initially result in freedom, but experience suggests otherwise. Even when one withdraws from particular circumstances, one is not completely free of the situation itself, because the impressions still persist in the mind. But persistence is not permanence. These impressions are nevertheless fleeting, and subject to constant change and dissolution. Mokṣa cannot be something that is reversible, contingent upon changing conditions and experiences. It cannot be grounded in such transience. It must instead be related to something that is unchanging and enduring, and is the solace that is ever present. Therefore, the question of mokṣa cannot be addressed without examining that one principle which is eternal and ageless. It is only by examining this principle that the nature of mokṣa can be coherently understood.
Advaita Vedānta, in this context, opens up this inquiry to critical scrutiny…..”
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