Liberation is Your Nature

Nidagha: "Master, what must I do to attain liberation? I will do anything."

Ribhu: "You cannot attain what you already are."

Nidagha: "But I do not feel liberated. I feel bound by desires, fears, and doubts."

Ribhu: "Does space feel bound when clouds appear in it? Is the sun dimmed when you close your eyes?"

Nidagha: "No, they remain as they are."

Ribhu: "You are that space. You are that sun. Desires appear in you, but you are not bound. Fears arise in you, but you are not threatened. Doubts float through you, but you are not confused."

Nidagha: "Then why do I experience bondage?"

Ribhu: "You do not experience bondage. You experience thoughts about bondage, and you believe them. Liberation is not removing bondage — it is seeing that bondage was only ever thought, never reality."

Nidagha: "So liberation is seeing through the illusion?"

Ribhu: "Even that is too much. Liberation is your nature — it does not need seeing, doing, or attaining. A king with amnesia does not become a king when he remembers. He was always the king. His remembering changed nothing but his experience."

Nidagha: "Then I am already free."

Ribhu: "You have always been free. Freedom is not what happens to you — it is what you are. Even this conversation is the free playing at finding freedom. Enjoy the play, but know its nature."

Nidagha: "There is nothing to do."

Ribhu: "Nothing was ever needed to be done. Rest in your nature. You are liberation itself."