An important question about immortality would naturally be how to achieve it, that is to say, what are the means which would help to establish the self in the state of freedom from ignorance, misery and rebirth? Every religion and every school of Hindu philosophy has addressed itself to this important question.
In the Hindu tradition the state of immortality has been
spoken of in two different terms, namely jivanmukti and videhamukti. Jivanmukti
is important. Videhamukti involves final liberation after the self is freed
from the entanglement with the material body at the time of death.
The state of jivanmukta is described as dharmamegha samadhi
by Patanjali in Yogasutra (IV.29). Dhyaneshwar (1275 CE – 96 CE), in his work
Amritanubhava (the experience of nectar), has given a beautiful description of
it in chapters 9 and 10. He calls it maunamudra (gesture of silence) and svaira
sadhi. Hathayogapradipika (IV.13) by Svatmarama Yogindra calls it siddhi of
rajayoga which helps one to overcome death.
The notion of immortality is described in the Bhagavad Gita
in many instances in simple and clear terms. Different words are used to
describe it in detail, such a brahmabhuta (V.24, VI.27), brahma-nirvana (V.24-25,
II.72), brahma-samparsha (VI.28), parama-gati (VII.13,21), paragati (XVI, 22,
23), avayapada (XVIII.56) and sasvata-sthana (XVIII.62). All these words are
used in the Bhagavad Gita to refer to immortality. How that state could be
realized is also described in different contexts in the Bhagavad Gita. The
essence of those descriptions can be summarized in the form of two shlokas (verses
that follow):
In life, each one of us goes through experiences of
opposites like hot and cold, pleasure and pain, and so on. Those dvandvas (pair
of opposites) are the result of the contact of objects and the sense organs
(matra sparsha). Essentially these contacts and the experiences of dvandvas are
impermanent and transient. They always come and go. So, oh Arjuna, tolerate
them, learn to bear them; be unaffected by them (Bhagavad Gita II.14) and the
one who does not get afflicted by these opposites, and looks equally upon
pleasure and pain (sukha and duhkha), attains immortality (amrittatva) (Bhagavad
Gita II.15)