________________
Chapter 16: Guru's Exposition about the Path and Means of Liberation (Sixth Fundamental)
The Guru has noticed that the pupil earnestly desires to proceed on the path of liberation. When a Guru gets such a pupil, he is pleased and is willing to teach him. The truly knowledgeable ones are actually looking for the right pupils to whom they can pass on their knowledge. The fountain of knowledge spontaneously starts flowing towards the deserving pupils. The Guru is therefore ready to show the right path to this pupil. In the Letter of Six Fundamentals (Appendix-II) that path has been described as under.
"There are means for attaining liberation. If the bondage of Karma continues to take place, its cessation would never be possible. But there are obvious means like knowledge, conviction, soul-oriented life, detachment, devotion, etc., which are the opposites of that bondage. By the intensity of those means the bondage of Karma becomes slack, is calmed down, and is destroyed. As such, knowledge, conviction, restraint, etc. are the means of liberation."
For gaining liberation one should avoid whatever can cause the bondage. The first step is to avoid ignorance. All living beings instinctively tend to identify themselves with their bodies. The human beings are endowed with discernment (Vivek), by exercising which one can learn that the embodiment and all the surrounding aspects are temporary, while the soul stays forever. Such learning is termed as right knowledge.
That learning, however, may not enable him to undertake right activity, because he would be lacking the conviction. He therefore needs to acquire firm faith about the true nature of soul. Thereby he gains the insight to understand what is right and what is wrong. That is called right perception. He then realizes that defiling instincts are unbecoming to him. For overcoming them he tries to restrain them, develops detachment towards the worldly phenomena, contemplates over the true nature of soul, and increasingly stays tuned to it. That leads to devotion towards the omniscient Lords as well as to the Guru. It is therefore said that knowledge, conviction, restraints, detachment, devotion, etc. constitute the path of liberation.
The Guru is aware that a brief explanation would not serve the purpose of the pupil. It may not be enough for him to undertake the journey on the path of liberation. The pupil may stumble somewhere on account of inadequacy of knowledge and understanding. The path of liberation is therefore described at length in the following 22 stanzas. These stanzas can be divided in three groups. The first group consists of 11 stanzas that explain the concept of liberation, types of Karma, and how the same can be overcome. The second group consists of the subsequent six stanzas that stipulate the stages on the road to liberation. The remaining five stanzas mainly relate to the attainment of perfect purity.
