Liberation, Nirvana, Moksha - What is it?

What does liberation mean to you? No matter the religion you follow or an atheist, everyone has a particular idea about what liberation means.

For me, Liberation meant to have no birth after this lifetime, i.e. this body and mind I have will be the last incarnation for my soul. Since we believed in incarnation, this idea fit really well.

But though there is an ultimate goal of Moksha, Nirvana, Liberation, I thought there is only so much progress I can do in this life, definitely the load of karma is not going to get exhausted anytime soon. So, my rebirth is happening for sure. I was just getting used to the idea that this life is not so bad, even if I have to reincarnate again and again, there is no problem at all.

This is exactly when I started to understand the real meaning of liberation. And it means to be free from the dualities of life; so that there is no difference between happy or sad, like or dislike, good or bad; there is only life; there is only joy and love; so you start flowing with the ocean of life. To do this, you must break away from any action that is influenced by your past life. In normal life situations, we are deeply influenced by the mental patterns (aka samskaras) built by our sub-conscious based on the past inter-actions over our lifetime (aka karma). This is what labels the experience and creates the dualities along with the attachments for one vs the other. When we start to make conscious choices in life situations, we respond to a situation instead of following a reaction based on an old sub-conscious behavioral pattern. The more conscious you are, the more free you become from the old behavioral patterns ultimately breaking away from any influence from the sub-conscious. This is what is freedom or liberation or moksha means to me.

Everyday, I try to be a little more free and make progress towards that liberation. Who says I have to do it all today; after all - life is a journey, not a destination.