While living, one is liberated from this saṃsāra which is the greatest wonder.

Jīvanmukti signifies liberation in life, the very concept that distinguishes yoga from religious escapisms. It is not requisite to die in order to be free; physical death, from this vantage, neither adds to nor subtracts from an already established realization. Vasiṣṭha designates it āścarya, a marvel, for it defies all dualistic logic: how can one abide in the world without being of the world? The resolution is not metaphysical but experiential: when the mind ceases to generate saṃsāra—the cyclical flux of identifications and rejections—the body persists, yet the drama ceases. The Aṣṭāvakra Gītā (II.23) articulates this with absolute radicality: “For the realized one, saṃsāra does not exist.” It is not that the world vanishes, but rather that its character as a prison dissolves. The jīvanmukta perceives the same forms, yet beholds them as transparent, akin to waves that are water, a pot that is clay, and saṃsāra as consciousness playing with itself.