Vivekachudamani 340

सर्वात्मना बन्धविमुक्तिहेतुः 

सर्वात्मभावान्न परोऽस्ति कश्चित् । 

दृश्याग्रहे सत्युपपद्यतेऽसौ 

सर्वात्मभावोऽस्य सदात्मनिष्ठया ॥ ३४0 ॥ 

sarvātmanā bandhavimuktihetuḥ 

sarvātmabhāvānna paro'sti kaścit | 

dṛśyāgrahe satyupapadyate'sau 

sarvātmabhāvo'sya sadātmaniṣṭhayā || 

(Sankaracarya's Vivekachudamani 340) 

To recognize the entire universe to be the Self is the means to complete liberation from bondage. There is nothing higher than realizing that one is the Self of all. One realizes this state by negating the perceptible world through being continuously established in the eternal Self. 

The sage Chanakya wrote, “There is no misery like the attachment. 

There is no happiness like detachment.” The final separator is death. Our own death drags us from everything we’re attached to. And the death of a loved one is surely one of life’s most painful experiences.

In the material world this kind of suffering, like many others, is inevitable. But we can do something to ease the pain. Lord Krishna tells Arjuna that we must tolerate distress because it’s part of life. But Krishna doesn’t leave Arjuna without support. He tells him that a true understanding of the self and its situation in this world will give him the strength to carry on even when things go against him. Lord Krishna teaches Arjuna that he is not the body but the soul within. The soul has no lasting connection with either the body or anything related to it. Knowing just that can inspire detachment. 

Beyond that, Lord Krishna teaches Arjuna the art of transferring attachment from the temporary to the eternal—specifically to Lord Krishna, the Supreme Lord Himself. All the attachments we develop in this world are misplaced attachment for Krishna. Or, seen another way, everything we’re attached to is, in a sense, Krishna. Because He creates and pervades everything, all our attachments are to some aspect of His energy. 

Yet while Krishna and His energy are identical, they’re different too. So although attachment to Krishna leads to liberation from all suffering, attachment to His material energy binds us to the material world, where we must suffer repeated birth, disease, old age, and death.