Outlines of Indian Philosophy c19.114

c19.114

A person that has reached this stage, when his lease of life runs out, attains kaivalya once for all and there is no return thence. But that is the goal of life in the eschatological sense (videha-mukti). There is another that can be reached in this life, viz. jīvan-mukti, which the doctrine explicitly admits.¹ In this condition the puruṣa continues to be related to the buddhi, but it is the buddhi which has been purged of its defects and is fully enlightened. The attitude of the jīvan-mukta towards the world is very much like that of the perfected man according to the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika ideal (p. 266). He participates in its life, but is detached from it Though in the world, he is not of it.