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A Modern Understanding of...
in some cases be a form of entanglement which is bondage to whatever degree.
(iu) Once freedom-in-itself is attained there is no necd for getting entangled again.
The main point of the Advaitin is that whatever of subjectivity is realized as essence, there is no need for going hack to the objects got over. If one likes ope may forgo this in trinsic joy of realization and turn again to objects which, along with this very temporal fact of recovering that freedom in-itself, stand in their true colour as having been constructed or de constructed symbolically or created or de-crealed through transcendental will They may also appear as being in the process of construction, de-construction, creation or de-creation. The jīvanmukta can even go further : he may unlce that realized metaphysical freedom to do good to the world-and that, of course, in a total way unthinkable for good people who have not realized this freedom : whatever good which the jai unmukta performs is a total good. Anyway, nonc of these forms of turning again to object is necessary for one who has realized absolute freedom. Realization of conscious ness-by-itself is at least a full alternative to construction, Creation and moral life, if these latter are taken to be of intrinsic worth. The Adyaitin just prefers this alternative It is because he prefers it that he preaches no action too. Not indeed complete no-action before full realization of pure consciousness, but either partial no-action before that or complete no-action after that, 11 Partial no-action means that as a
11 Of course, for the Advaitin, there is no scope for action at any level
beyond citta, and he recommends cessation of action even at higher sub-levels of citta. Whatever look like vidhis at these higher levels and sub-levels he has explicitly called vidhicchayas, and all apparent willactivities like dissociation (vairagya ) at these levels and sub-levels he would regard as of the essence of knowledge. What we are claiming in the text is that even if these will-activities are not translated that way, even then no-action would be an alternative valid doctrine, en alternative, say, to Tantra and German transcendentalism.
