In plain words
Mukti is not a change that comes after one dies. We must experience the state of this Liberation while we are alive. What is this liberation? Vimukti is liberation. Only when Vimukti is complete is there Mukti. For Liberation, the first thing is freedom. Freedom is first, Vimukti second. Mukti is third. There is a fine example of this. First of all, be a student. Study. Then enter a job. Then you get a salary. Then you are an employee. When the job is over you retire. After you retire, the pension comes. While you are in the job they do not give a pension. While you are studying they do not give a job. First we must study. We must become students. After being a student we must enter a job. Only after you have done the job properly does retirement come to you. Then they give you the pension. In the same way freedom is like the student's stage. Liberation is like the job. Vimukti is the state after retirement. Then comes the pension called grace. You need not go to the office. Sit at home, and the pension comes. That pension is the grace God gives.
In God's view there are four kinds of Mukti. Sālokya, sāmīpya, sārūpya and sāyujya: these are the four. The first is sālokya. That is, from a young age you must first enter that world. Sā-lokya. If you ask, "Which world are you in?" they say, "I am in the world of studies; I am in the world of marriage." "I am in the world of God": that is sālokya, and that is the true world. My mind is merged in the principle of God. Next, sāmīpya means: I am sitting very near to the mind. Third: I have become that very form; that is sārūpya. That is "The knower of Brahman becomes Brahman itself." I have gained the form of what I contemplated. The fourth is sāyujya. I have merged. That, they said, is liberation. He has joined it. We must go on achieving these with effort from today itself. In the small classes we must not enter the negative.