Sat-darshana Bhashya (translation)

Verse 41.

बद्धत्वभावे सति मोक्षचिन्ता
बन्धस्तु कस्येति विचारणेन ।
सिद्धे स्वयं स्वात्मनि नित्यमुक्ते
क्व बन्धचिन्ता क्व च मोक्षचिन्ता॥

Thought of liberation is bound with sense of bond. Attempt to know whose is the bond Leads to the unborn Self, one’s own, eternally free. Where then can arise thoughts of freedom and bond?

He gets a sense of release who has a sense of bondage. It is the ego-self that is bound and tries to get liberated. The moment the ego enters into a quest for the Self, bondage loosens and the Real Self is attained which is eternally free and with reference to which there can arise no question of bondage or freedom. What is bound and feels the bondage has been already discussed. It is enough here to reiterate that bondage refers to the ego-self, called the jiva, the living being or the soul-formation in the subtle stuff of life and mind, with the apparent or surface consciousness cid-abhasa. But this is impermanent; it is for its dissolution, mergence or transformation into deeper or radical consciousness of the Self, the Real, that special means and methods and yogic disciplines are enjoined in the Shastras, in the works of men competent to speak on the subject.

We come to the last verse of the shastra. Real Mukti liberation, is different from the three-fold Release and it is essentially the dissolution of the ego.