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428 Jiva Gosvāmi and Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa [CH. secondly, as the realization of God in His personal nature, as associated with Ilis supra-rational powers in a personal manner. Emancipation (mukti) may be achieved both in life and after death; when one realizes the true nature of God, one's false apprehension of His nature vanishes and this is one's state of mukti; at death also there may be a revelation of God's true nature, and a direct and immediate realization of Ilis nature as God.
Ultimate Realization. The realization of the nature of ultimate reality may again be of a twofold nature: abstract, i.e., as Brahman, and concrete, i.e., as personal God or the supreme soul (Paramātman). In the latter case the richness of the concrete realization is further increased when one learns to realize God in all His diverse forms?. In this stage, though the devotee realizes the diverse manifold and infinite powers of God, he learns to identify his own nature with the nature of God as pure bliss. Such an identification of God's nature manifests itself in the form of the emotion of bhakti or joy (priti); the devotee experiences his own nature as joy, and realizes his oneness with God through the nature of God as bliss or joy. It is through the experience of such joy that the ultimate cessation of sorrow becomes possible, and without it the devotee cannot realize God in association with all His diverse and infinite powers. By the intimate experience of the joyous nature of God His other attributes, characters and powers can also be revealed to him. Man naturally seeks to realize himself through joy; but ordinarily he does not know what is the true object of joy, and thus he wastes his energies by seeking joy in diverse worldly objects. He attains his true end when he realizes that God is the source of all joy, that He alone should be sought in all our endeavours, and that in this way alone can one attain absolute joy and ultimate liberation in joy. The true devotee wishes to attain kaivalya; but kaivalya means "purity," and, as the true nature of God is the only ultimate purity, kaivalya would mean the realization of God's nature. The joy of the realization of God and God alone should therefore be regarded as the true kaivalya, the ultimate nature of God.
In the state of jīvan-mukti the individual, through a true knowledge of himself and his relation to God, comes to realize that the
1 Şat-sandarbha, p. 675.
