Chapter II
From Truth to Truth
Questions
may be asked, and doubts expressed by many about the state of a person after
attaining fulfillment, the fullness of awareness. The person’s life will be
saturated with unexcelled divine bliss (Ananda).
The person will experience oneness of thought, emotion, and knowledge with
all.
The
person will be in ecstasy, immersed in the One and Only, the eternal divine
Principle, for that alone can confer joy during the process of living. Genuine
joy is this and no other. God is the embodiment of eternal ever-full joy.
Self is fullness and bliss is wholeness
Fullness
means wholeness. Wholeness implies One and not two or three. There cannot then
be any place for the individual. When an individualized Atma or soul (Jivi), the particularized differentiated
self, has become whole and full, there is no possibility of its return to the
consciousness of the objective world — such doubts may arise in the minds of
many, but these doubts are not correct.
When
the individualized soul becomes fixed in the totality (Samashti), it loses all ideas of distinction and is ever in the
consciousness of the totality, the One that subsumes the many.
The
Divine that it knows as the core of each “thing and being” is now recognized by
it as the Divine that it itself is, so it will be deeper than ever in the fullness
of bliss (Ananda). How can it then
experience separateness? No, it cannot.
The
rays of that bliss illumine all religions. The sages and great wise people
(rishis) became aware of the bliss. They communicated that experience to the
world in easily understandable language. The unreachable moon is made known by
pointing a finger in the direction where it can be seen!
So
too, they brought within the purview of people the truth that lies beyond the
reach of mind and speech, according to the state of consciousness that each of
them had attained. Their teachings were not only simple but varied to educate
and elevate all levels of understanding.
Introspection
Ananda upon attainment of
completeness / attaining self-realization, has been covered in many posts in
the blog / in many satsangh talks in the youtube channel earlier.
Let us take up this “Ananda” as explained in Taittiriya
Upanishad today, from the exposition given by Swami Krishnananda
1)
“To
come in contact with any object for getting happiness, we have to forget what
we really are and focus on the object.
2)
This
is atma-nasha, or destruction of
selfhood, as it were, in a very significant manner so that, in every clinging
to an object, there is a transference of ourselves to the particular object in
which we are interested.
3)
Every
kind of love, every type of attachment is a transference of oneself to
another.
4)
If
a mother loves the child, the mother has gone; only the child is there. The
consciousness of the mother has identified itself with the child's body in such
an intense manner that she does not exist anymore.
5)
This
is the case with every kind of transference of consciousness to objects.
6)
All
our sorrows in life can be attributed to this peculiar trait in our
consciousness to go outwardly—either positively as love, or negatively as
hatred—in respect of certain things.
Now comes the question of love and
happiness.
How are we happy?
And how is it that when there is love for a
particular object, happiness seems to manifest itself from within?
This is mentioned in Taittiriya Upanishad when it discusses the nature of the innermost
sheath in us, called the Anandamaya kosha.
7)
What
makes us happy? When we come to the proximity of a loved object, we seem to be
happy in our mind: The nearer we come to it, the greater is the happiness
we feel inside. The happiness that one feels at the proximity of the loved
object is called the priya.
8)
It
is not the apex of happiness, because we have not possessed the object. But
happiness increases when it is under our possession.
But now comes the psychological feature.
How is it that happiness arises at all?
What do we mean by happiness?
Can we define it?
Is it a substance?
Is it a thing?
Is it an object?
Is it material or non-material?
Is it outside us or inside us?
Or is it midway between the two? Where is it
situated?
9)
An
analysis would make it clear that happiness is not in the object. If a
particular object which attracts our attention is the source of happiness, then
happiness should be really inside it, as a part of its nature.
10)
Then,
as the sun is shining for all equally and not merely for one person, the object
concerned also should be a source of happiness to everyone in the world, if
happiness is the real character of that object. But we will see on observation
that this is not true.
11)
So,
it is not true that the object is the source of happiness.
In our study of the Aitareya Upanishad, we noted that the Atman alone was; nothing else
existed in the beginning.
There is the selfhood in us, which is another
name for the deepest non-externalisable consciousness.
12)
Why
does the mind move towards the object outside? Because it is not
ours. Our love for a thing is intense when it is not possessed by
us.
13)
The
love that we feel is nothing but a movement of the mind towards the object for
the purpose of grabbing it.
But when we have already got it, where is the
point in the mind moving towards it once again? So, the mind withdraws itself.
14)
The
externalisation of the mind outside was for the purpose of grabbing the object
of sense. But, when the purpose is served—when the object has come near us and
we have got it—the mind need not think of it.
15)
When
the externalising force of the mind ceases on account of the satisfaction felt
by the possession of the object, there is, for a fraction of a moment, a flash
of the universality of our consciousness.
16)
The
mind ceases to think of the object because of having had the satisfaction of
possessing it, and the cessation of the mind is the cessation of externality of
consciousness.
17)
The
moment this cessation takes place, the non-externalised Self within us bursts
out; and happiness is nothing but the experience of non-externalised
consciousness.
Thus, the happiness has come from us; it has not
come from outside.”
If
the exposition of this great sage seems difficult to understand and absorb, let
us understand the same in simplest manner.
When a desired object is owned or attained, then
for a fraction of seconds/minutes, mind withdraws from the external world and
rests without any thought. At that moment, unknowingly, we are one with our
true nature, the SELF. This oneness with our true SELF, for want of better
expression at worldly level, is defined or explained as “Ananda”.
Now,
from the inner most expression from source of an unnamed realized seer, a
Jivanmukhta
“All
these expressions, bliss or Ananda,
are valid only for the human beings outside of me. To me, all these
are not relevant. There is nothing outside me for me to experience it as “Joy”
or “Ananda”. I just exist. I AM I”.
When
Swami writes about the one who has realized SELF, "The person’s life will
be saturated with unexcelled divine bliss (Ananda)."
He is writing for the seekers to know about the state of a realized seer, not
from the realized seer's side.
Continued….
Love.
