Ashtavakra Gita 18.80 -

The Sage’s list of negations is still extensive. In fact, it is not so much a negation, but the wholesome assertion that the Self, which rises above the existence-cum-non-existence duo, transcendental in every way, alone is. Even the word transcendental is relative. It is conceived only when we keep the idea of existence and non-existence in mind. When the duo of existence and non-existence becomes inappropriate and irrelevant, the relative concept of transcendental presence also vanishes. What survives then is totally ineffable, un-referable!

It is in such a context that the Sage says that there is neither heaven nor hell. There is no jeevan-mukti either. Liberation is thought of only when bondage is there. When there is nothing, namely the world, what liberation from it can be? True liberation reigns when the seeker comes to recognize that the binding factor, namely the world itself, is a product of illusion.

Liberation is not the freedom from any strong bondage as such, caused by something. It is in realizing that there is no factor at all to bind. Bondage is a fictitious notion, and hence to be suspended, in full. Such a bondage dissolution is naturally the true liberation the seeker gets. To think of it as anything else is like trying to cremate the body of a barren woman’s son’s father! This only confirms the true nature of freedom, the self-existing presence called the Self, bestows!