There is another overall Purusha, the Purushottama, who is beyond the three segments of time, the three universes and is everywhere at the moment and all moments. His Glory is evident all things and beings. (SSS Vol.8, pp. 123-124)
Man did not come here to sleep and eat; he has come to manifest, by disciplined processes, the divine in him. That is why he is called vyakti (individual), he who makes vyakta (clear) the shakti (power) that is in him – the Divine energy that motivates him.
For this purpose he has come endowed with this body and the intelligence needed to control it and divert it to useful channels of activity. You must achieve this by Dharma nishtha and Karma nishtha - steady pursuit of morality and good deeds. (SSS Vol.1)
The presence of God, the vision of the Absolute, is not a state to be attained or newly achieved. God or the Absolute is the very nature of the Self. The individual is the indivisible expression of God. (PE, p. 50)
Man is essentially Divine. However, he believes himself to be an individual, limited and temporary, because he is entangled in the characteristics of the Five Elements, namely Sound, Touch, Form, Taste and Smell. This error brings about joy and grief, good and bad, birth and death. To escape from this association with the Elements, to rid oneself from the pulls of their characteristics, is the sign of Liberation, called in Sanskrit as Kaivalya, Moksha or Mukti. Names may change; but the achievement is the same.
While entangled with the Five elements, man is attracted, distracted or disappointed by them; all this causes distress. Wealth, possessions – vehicles, buildings – all these are transmutations of the elements. Man craves for them; when he loses them or fails to get them, he spurns them.
Let us take the Five Elements, one by one. The living being has the first one, the Earth, as its base. Water, the second, is the basis for the earth. Water is produced from Fire, the third element, Fire itself emanating from Wind, the fourth. Wind or Vatu arises from Ether, or Akasha; Akasha emerges from the Primal Nature and the Primal Nature is but the manifestation of one aspect of the majesty of God, or the Supreme Sovereign Atma, the Paramatma.
Seeking to reach that Paramatma, the source and core of the Universe, the Individual or Jiva ho has entangled himself in the elements has to overcome, by discrimination and steady practice of detachment, the bonds one by one; such a person is a Sadhaka; he who wins in this struggle is the Jivanmukta ‘ Liberated even while alive.’
For the process of such discrimination and for the visualisation of one’s innate reality, one has to study the Upanishads. They are collectively called Vedanta. They form the Jnana Kanda of the Vedas, the Section that deals with the Higher Wisdom. Liberation from the consequence of Ignorance can be secured only by Knowledge or Jnana. The Upanishads themselves declare ‘Jnanadeva tu kaivalyam’: ‘By Knowledge alone can freedom be won.’ (UV, pp. 1-2)