Traditional A jīvanmukta, literally meaning 'liberated while living',[1] is a person who, in the Jain and Vedānta philosophy, has gained complete self-knowledge and self-realisation and attained kaivalya (enlightenment) or moksha (liberation), thus is liberated while living and not yet dead.
[2][3] The jivanmukt being is termed as sayogi-kevali (enlightened one with the body) or Arihant in Jainism.
The state is the aim of moksha in Vedānta, Yoga and other schools of Hinduism, and it is referred to as jīvanmukti.
At the end of their lives, jīvanmuktas destroy remaining karmas and attain parāmukti (final liberation) and become parāmukta.
According to popular tradition, some examples of jivanmuktas are Parshvanatha, Mahāvīra, the Buddha, Adi Śankarā, Dnyāneshwar, Kabīr, Chaitanya Mahāprabhu, Rāmakrishna Paramahansa, Ramana Maharshi, Vedānta Deśika, Swāminārāyan, Nisargadatta Maharaj, and Swami Ramdas.
[13][14][15] The various texts and schools of Hinduism describe the jīvanmukti state of existence as one of liberation and freedom reached within one's life.
[18] Jīvanmukti is a state that transforms the nature, attributes and behaviors of an individual, claim these ancient texts of Hindu philosophy.
For example, according to Nāradaparivrājaka Upanishad, the enlightened individual shows attributes such as:[19] Ādi Śankara explains that nothing can induce one to act who has no desire of his own to satisfy.
[21] The term parāmukti is commonly used to refer to final liberation, which occurs upon the death of the body of someone who has attained Jīvanmukti or Kaivalya during his or her lifetime.
In the Hindu view, when an ordinary person dies and his physical body disintegrates, the person's unresolved karma causes his ātman to pass on to a new birth; and thus the kārmic inheritance is reborn in one of the many realms of samsāra.
When such a person dies and his physical body disintegrates, his cycle of rebirth ends and he become one with Brahman.
[citation needed] The Advaita school holds the view that the world appearance is owing to avidyā (ignorance) that has the power to project i.e. to superimpose the unreal on the real (adhyāsa), and also the power to conceal the real resulting in the delusion of the jīva who experiences objects created by his mind and sees difference in this world, he sees difference between the ātman ("the individual self") and Brahman ("the supreme Self").
When this stage is achieved then the person is freed from the idea that the world is separate and independent from us and that it is an ultimate source of abiding pleasure and joy.
The third stage sāmīpya — is intimacy with the Divine — corresponding to the unconscious dreamless state of consciousness – God-realization occurs when the nature of the saguṇa īśvara is cognized and one surrenders to Him/Her.