Liberation means freedom from material bondage. There are five types of liberation which can be achieved by a spiritual seeker.
These are:
- Sarsti: achieving opulences equal to that of the Lord.
- Sarupya: having a form like that of the Lord. Residents of the Vaikuntha planet have four handed form like Lord Vishnu.
- Samipya: living as a personal associate of the Lord.
- Salokya: living on a Vaikuṇṭha planet.
- Sayujya: Merging into the Brahman feature of the Lord.
Sayujya is the aspiration of the impersonalists and so is abhorred by the great authorities of Vedic literatures. Devotees of the Lord are ready to accept the other four types of liberation (sarsti, sarupya, samipya and salokya) but they would never accept sayujya liberation. These liberations can be achieved by those who have developed distaste for frustrating material life and have made a concerted choice to become a part of the God’s abode.
However pure devotees of the Lord do not even want liberation. For them hell or heaven or even the spiritual world is same. They remain so absorbed in serving and remembering the Lord that they never think of their own life and desire. Their love for Lord is so great that even Krishna finds it difficult to understand it; in fact Krishna completely surrenders to them. It was mother Yashoda’s extraordinary love for Krishna that she was able to bind him by a rope.
