[Advaita-l] About Moksha or Enlightenment

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

On Feb 7, 2017 6:55 AM, "Kripa Shankar via Advaita-l" <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

Namaste Bhaskar,

I just wanted to know if it is possible for an animal to get Moksha. I have
no doubts regarding RM or the cow.

At least in the  context of Advaita, mukti means Jivanmukti. Is it not?
Shankara has clarified ‎that krama mukti is not
Moksha/enlightenment/nirvana. Because otherwise, any random
animal/bird/insect may go to shiva/vishnu lokA after death. Who knows?


That's just the thing. Every jIva is on the path of kramamukti. There is no
rule that this path doesn't include pashu-janmas along the way. Whatever
karmA resulted in birth as an animal or bird or insect, once it is
exhausted, yields to the results of other past karmA that was waiting to
happen. Where some previous good karmA might well take that particular jIva
is beyond the horizon of our knowledge here and now.

So, on that note, can we wrap up this thread of discussion? I don't see any
key tattva related points that have remained unsaid over the last two weeks
in this topic.

When the Acharya says jantUnAm nara Jenna durlabham, it is about using the
opportunity given in our current janma to get jnAna. It says nothing about
what the next step is going to be for a cow or elephant or crow after its
death. Beyond a point, it seems to me that such discussions are a waste of
time, which would be much better spent in making the best of this nara
janma that we have today.

Thank you,
Vidyasankar