Established in the Self, one is neither involved nor liberated at any time. Though I seem to perish, I do not perish; the Self-Consciousness is perfectly established.

The verse performs a radical inversion of soteriological categories. Ordinary language speaks of mokṣa as something to be attained, and of bandhas as something from which one is liberated. But here it is stated that the cidātman “is neither entangled nor liberated” (na saṃlipto naiva mucyati). This is not quietism; it is a technical precision about the nature of the Self.

The fundamental error —mūlāvidyā— consists in supposing that the pure Self needs to do something in order to be free. But freedom is not a state to be acquired; it is the inalienable nature of what we have always been. “Naśyaty api na naśyāmi” —though all that is composite dissolves, the Self does not dissolve— is the formulation that allows for the coexistence of phenomenal appearance with absolute permanence.

This schematization corresponds to the jīvanmukta of Vidyāraṇya’s Jīvanmuktiviveka: one who “lives liberated” is not someone who has attained an extraordinary state, but someone who has ceased superimposing states upon their immutable nature. The Haṭha Pradīpikā (IV.69-70) describes this state as rāja-yoga: “The liberated yogī acts or does not act; there is no difference for him” —because his action no longer creates saṃskāras requiring future purification.

The verse performs a radical inversion of soteriological categories. Ordinary language speaks of mokṣa as something to be attained, and of bandhas as something from which one is liberated. But here it is stated that the cidātman “is neither involved nor liberated” (na saṃlipto naiva mucyati). This is not quietism; it is a technical precision about the nature of the Self.

The fundamental error —mūlāvidyā— consists in supposing that the pure Self needs to do something in order to be free. But freedom is not a state to be acquired; it is the inalienable nature of what we have always been. “Naśyaty api na naśyāmi” —although all that is composite dissolves, the Self does not dissolve— is the formulation that allows for the coexistence of phenomenal appearance with absolute permanence.

This schematization corresponds to the jīvanmukta of Vidyāraṇya’s Jīvanmuktiviveka: one who “lives liberated” is not someone who has attained an extraordinary state, but someone who has ceased superimposing states upon their immutable nature. The Haṭha Pradīpikā (IV.69-70) describes this state as rāja-yoga: “The liberated yogī acts or does not act; there is no difference for him”—because his action no longer creates saṃskāras that require future purification.