To have a desire for liberation is also extremely rare. There is a verse in the Avadhoota Gita (verse 1.1) as well as in the Khandanakhandakhaadya. It says that "the desire for advaita (the non dual) arises out of Ishvara's grace. It saves one from the most terrible fears, but only arises in one or two people". This desire for advaita is nothing but desire for liberation, and its uniqueness is illustrated by saying that it only happens to one or two people.
Similarly, the Bhagavad Gita says that "One in a thousand strives to attain Ishvara, and even in those few thousand accomplished individuals, only a few attain the knowledge of the essence (tattva jnyaana)".
Source Of Bondage
"Mumukshaa", desire for liberation, means the desire for release. The desire to free yourself out of all of your entanglements is the desire for liberation. The one in which such a desire arises is called a "Mumukshu", a seeker.
How many entanglements are you trapped in? In reality, you are not trapped at all. Are you joined at the hip with anyone or anything? Are you tied with a rope to someone? All bondage is in the mind. The mind has got into a habit of entangling itself in one thing or another. It does not physically get entangled in the world. The mind cannot stay without imagining or conceptualizing. This repetitive thinking about an external object of sense (vishaya) results in the notion of entanglement, of bondage.
The object of sense is imaginary, and so is the bondage. Wealth has never tied itself to you, the mind has tied you to wealth. Wealth does not have the intelligence to recognize its owner! Even relationships with other people are all in the realm of the mind.
The notion of reality (sat-buddhi) and the notion of happiness (sukha-buddhi) in sense objects, gives birth to ideas of attraction, aversion and relationship. Bondage arises from those notions alone.
Dawn Of Desire For Liberation
When we begin to imagine joy in these entanglements, the desire to free ourselves from these entanglements ends. What do we want to give up in reality? House, person, land, money, jewellery - we don not want to give up any of these. We only want to give up the sorrow caused by all of these. We want to give up sorrow and the cause of sorrow, and grab happiness and the cause of happiness.
That is why the desire for liberation begins when the discrimination between naturally obtained joy and sorrow begins. Wherever and whenever you see something as sorrow or sorrowful, you begin to leave it; and wherever and whenever you see something as joy or joyful, you want to grab it. That which seems as joy or joyful, but which comes and goes, that temporary joy will also be sorrowful. So, when dispassion (vairagya) towards sorrow and temporality begins, that is when real desire for liberation commences.
Grades Of Desire For Liberation
The desire for disentangling from objects and people, then from their relationships, is considered the initial or inferior grade of dispassion and mumukshaa (desire for liberation).
Then, we generate the desire for disentangling ourselves from the internal organ (antahakarana or mind) itself, since the mind is the source of all these desires. This state is considered the pinnacle, the most supreme form of dispassion and desire for liberation.
Attraction and aversion are located in the mind. That from which the desires of attraction and aversion arise, if we sever that very thing itself, then all kinds of bondage will permanently cease. In the Yoga Vaasishtha, Brihaspati instructed his son Kacha to renounce everything for the goal of supreme happiness. Kacha roamed the earth for a year, but renunciation did not happen. He then threw his staff and water jug. He threw several such objects. In the end, he said "I will burn this body in a pyre". Brihaspati held his hand and said: "No my son! This is not renunciation. When you renounce the mind, you renounce everything". Without renouncing the mind, no being can ever be free. Therefore, the desire to renounce the mind is true mumukshaa, desire for liberation.
Ishvara is experienced only through renunciation of the mind. Therefore, only the grace of Ishvara can create the desire of liberation. Ishvara creates the desire of liberation only in those individuals that he wants to bring unto himself. This is why the desire for liberation is unique.
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