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THE SIKH DOCTRINE OF LIBERATION
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in God (akhilabandha rahito brahmanişthah). It may be mentioned in passing that the Jivanmuktiviveka describes three ways of attaining jivanmukti ; knowledge of the truth (tattvajñāna), cessation of activities of the mind (manonāśa) and destruction of instinctive desires (vāsanākşaya).
An illuminating portrait of jīvanmukta is found in the religious compositions of the ninth Sikh Guru, Tegh Bahadur.
“He who is always released from lust, anger and the company of bad persons, who considers joy and grief, fame and defame as equal; he who is detached from happiness and sorrow and knows the reality of the world; he who has renounced praise and slander, discovers the path of nirban.°53
Such kind of person is to be acknowledged as liberated. He who has renounced pride, delusion and attachment and fixed his mind on the name of God is released. According to Guru Tegh Bahädur he is liberated in whose heart dwells God. A man who is indifferent towards joy and grief is really an image of God. He considers heaven and hell, nectar and poison, gold and copper, regard and disregard as equal (sam). He who is devoid of greed and delusion and is unmoved by sorrows and happiness is known as an awakened one and is also acknowledged as a liberated person.51
Guru Tegh Bahādur says that God dwells in his heart whose mind is clean like a glass and is untouched with joy and grief.
"Such a person neither indulges in despising nor in praising others and he considers gold and iron both alike, He is called a sage ( jogi), who is above joy and grief and has fixed his fleeting mind which goes in ten directions. Such a man is acknowledged as a liberated being."55
The ideal of a jīvanmukta is similar to that of a bodhisattva, who works for the welfare of humanity. A bodhisattva is one who has destroyed all desires, uprooted all passions and who has taken the vow of liberating all the beings. He transcends the pairs of opposites like joy and grief, honour and dishonour, gain and loss etc. He is totally indifferent towards both friends and foes, considers gold and dust alike and knows the unreality of the phenomenal world. He is really an embodiment of truth, goodness and universal kindness. He
53. Adi Granth, vol. I, p. 219. 54. Ibid., p. 220. 55. Ibid., vol. II, p. 684.
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