Moksha
Also known as: Liberation, Mukti, Self-Realization
Sanskrit: moksha, from the root much, meaning to release or free.
Moksha is liberation, the recognition of one's true nature as Atman or Brahman and freedom from the cycle of birth and rebirth, samsara, that Indian traditions describe as driven by ignorance of that true nature. In Advaita Vedanta it is a recognition of what is already the case, not a future attainment.
Classical Indian philosophy names moksha as one of the four traditional aims of human life, alongside dharma (duty), artha (livelihood), and kama (pleasure), but treats it as the highest, since the others unfold within a life still bound by ignorance of one's true nature. Advaita Vedanta teaches that moksha is not a future event but a direct recognition, since the self was never actually bound; what is removed is only the misunderstanding, not a real bondage.
Moksha is described across Hindu philosophical schools as liberation from samsara, the cycle of birth and death, though schools differ on what is precisely liberated and into what: Advaita describes it as recognizing one's already-existing identity with Brahman, while dualistic schools describe a more literal union or proximity between an individual soul and the divine. Rather than a future event achieved through sufficient effort, several traditions describe moksha as available now, obscured only by mistaken identification with the body and mind, not distant in time.
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Related Terms
Nonduality
Nonduality (or non-duality) is the direct recognition that awareness and its contents, such as thoughts, sensations, and the sense of being a separate self, are not two separate things but a single, seamless reality. It is a description of direct experience, central to Advaita Vedanta and related contemplative traditions.
Atman
Atman is the Sanskrit term for the true Self, the innermost witnessing awareness that Advaita Vedanta holds to be identical with Brahman, the universal reality. It is distinguished from the ego or personality, which is considered a changing, constructed sense of I rather than the unchanging awareness in which all experience appears.
Brahman
Brahman is the Advaita Vedanta term for the single, unchanging, limitless reality underlying and pervading all existence. It is described as without form and without a second, the ground of being from which the entire universe of names and forms appears, and is held to be identical with the individual self, Atman.