How Thoreau's Walden Pond Mixed with the Ganges and Yoga Came to America with Swami Vivekananda

Liberation
Religions can be divided into two main types: The vast majority offer Salvation
to the individual. Usually, in these traditions, the individual is not defined in
terms of the body, but rather as a soul or spirit. In such teachings, the individual
being has some experience or attains to some state, purification, level or grace
such as ‘heaven’. This is the general understanding of what is meant by religion
and the underlying principle of the traditions of Christianity, Judaism, Islam and
most sects of Hinduism.
Salvation of “self ” “or soul” is the most common basis for religion and religious
thinking in the world. It is so common, it has come to be the only way of
considering a religion and what it proposes. However, this is a naïve assumption
and is simply not true. We are just unaware of any other way of looking at what
religion seems to offer.
There is another viewpoint and type of religious tradition and understanding.
It is Liberation, or freedom. It is Liberation from the idea or assumption of any
form of separate self, soul or even Self. The traditions of Liberation, hold that
the assumption of ‘self,’ or any form or idea of individuality is illusory, nonnecessary
and false. Such an assumption is at the basis of duality, a reality that is
held to not be the case. Duality is at the root of all suffering, As the Upanishad
says, “Certainly fear is born of duality.”
For the Religions of Liberation, herein lies the root of all suffering . . The assumption
of Self or Soul, which is criticized from the point of view of Liberation.
There are very few traditions of Liberation in the great tradition of religion
and spirituality. It is found elaborated in Advaita Vedanta and in certain schools
of Mahayana Buddhism.
Related Glossary Terms
Salvation
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