True Bliss Lies Within

True Bliss Lies Within

Dr. Sanjay Mahalingam was a student and research scholar from 2002-2008. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Management and Commerce in the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning, Prasanthi Nilayam Campus.

The great sage Veda Vyasa’s heart was full of anguish at the fratricidal carnage going on in the battlefield of Kurukshetra [in the Mahabharata epic], for were not both the warring groups of his lineage? Sad at heart, he was walking on the blood-soaked plains of the battlefield, where another day’s slaughter was about to begin. He spotted a spider scurrying along the ground. “Hey! Why so fast?” enquired the sage. The spider scurried off the path, climbed up an anthill and from that eminence it replied, “Know you not that the war chariot of Arjuna [one of the Pandavas] is about to pass this way! If I am caught under its wheels I am done.”

The sage laughed and said, “No eye gets wet when you die! You leave no vacuum when you disappear.” Shaking with rage, the spider replied, “Oh bloated sage, you feel that if you die, the world will suffer a great loss whereas I will not be missed at all. I, too, have a wife and children whom I love; I, too, have a home and a store of food and cling to life with as much tenacity as you folk; I also have hunger, thirst, grief, pain, joy, delight, and the agony of separation from [my] kith and kin.”

Sage Vyasa hung his head and moved on muttering, Samanyam Etat Pasubhir Narani, ‘for man and beast these things are common’. He added to himself, however, “Only man is capable of yearning for beauty, truth, and goodness, inquiry into the ultimate, and attaining awareness of the underlying unity. These attributes are the unique treasures of mankind.” Saying thus, he went his way.

“It is indeed difficult to obtain a human birth, and he who having obtained the same does not exert himself to realize the highest truth verily commits suicide by clinging to things unreal.” (Viveka Chudamani—Vedanta) Do we really know the answers to the most fundamental questions of life? Alternatively put, have we made an effort to subjectively experience the absolute Truth.

Truth is not at all what we see and experience. Truth is internal (nivritti satyam—inward truth). Truth is that which is untainted by mind and speech, beyond the categories of time and space, transcending cause and effect, ever the same, the very foundation of this universe. Vedanta describes it as Ritam, synonymous with the eternal Brahman.      ~Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba

There is another reason why inquiry into the ultimate gains urgency. From cradle to grave, every man, every being, seeks only one thing: peace and joy without end. All seeking is a manifestation of this primordial need of man to be ‘happy’ always. A desire satisfied produces pleasure; a longing unfulfilled creates sadness. Between the mental crests of happiness and sadness are the troughs of boredom. But true bliss is not pleasure, pain, or indifference. It is ever new joy experienced subjectively in the still depths of the soul, buried deep beneath the exciting mental waves of pleasure and pain. This supreme bliss is revealed only in the quietness of the soul that is a result of an intense inner effort of the mind to commune with the Absolute. But very few people can actually tear themselves away from the attractions of the world and make a decisive turn toward self-inquiry. Man is engaged in an eternal quest for that ‘something else’ he hopes will bring him happiness, complete and unending. For those who have sought and found God, the search is over: He is that Something Else.

‘Don’t allow the mind to run after fleeting pleasures. Direct it toward the permanent bliss derivable from the knowledge of the immanent divinity. Keep before the mind’s eye the faults of sensory pleasures and worldly happiness. Whatever the crisis, however deep the misery, do not allow your grip over the mind to get loose; tighten it further, fixing your eyes on higher values. Do not allow the mind to stray away from the holy tabernacle of the heart. Make it bow before the atma within.’ (Jnana Vahini).

The aim of our life is to realize our true selves as the imperishable divine essence, the very soul of the universe, so that when we ‘die’ we don’t perish. Any other desire in our bosom is at best a distraction and deserves to be renounced with earnestness. ‘As fog before the sun, ignorance melts away before knowledge. Knowledge is acquired by uninterrupted inquiry. One should constantly engage in the inquiry on the nature of the Self. As you remove the husk that covers the rice, so, too, the ignorance that adheres to the mind has to be removed by the frequent application of the abrasive atmic inquiry.’ (Jnana Vahini).

The success of any endeavor in any sphere of life largely depends on the physical and mental equipment the seeker has at his disposal. This applies equally, if not more to the inward journey a seeker of truth undertakes. The scriptures declare that to entitle one to embark on the inquiry into the atma, one must be endowed with the Sadhana Chatustaya or the four qualifications. They are viveka (discrimination), vairagya (renunciation), shad–sampat (six allied virtues), and mumukshatwa (desire for liberation).

The settled conviction that the Seer alone is eternal and the seen is transient is called viveka (discrimination). Once having discriminated between the real and the unreal, dispassion for the transient fruits of one’s action here and hereafter is termed as vairagya (renunciation). The six allied virtues are: turning the sense organs away from their objects; detachment from sense enjoyments by continuously observing their defects; withdrawal of the mind from the arena of sense pleasures; bearing afflictions without anxiety or lament; faith in the scriptures and the words of the Guru; and the concentration of the inner faculty on the Self; finally, the seeker must have intense yearning for liberation. Once the inner instrument has been thus prepared by adequate disciplines, it can now enter into the extremely subtle process of Self-Inquiry.

What is the nature of this inquiry? 

Can fire burn itself? Can water feel wet? No, because heat is the very nature of fire, and dampness of water. In the same way, my true nature can never be known to me, for whatever is known cannot be [the true] me. The seen cannot be the seer. The seer sees the seen and is always distinct and untouched. I am the seer, the eternal subject. The seen has no separate identity at all, for does not the very existence of the seen entirely depend on the seeing of the seer? In other words, all that seems to exist exists only because the light of awareness falls on it and illumines it. Is anything perceived in deep sleep? Does a dream have any separate existence from the dreamer? Is not the dream entirely wound up, without a trace, once the dreamer wakes up? Therefore, I am the eternal witness, ever witnessing the objective world of thought, emotion, feeling, and perception. What follows from the above line of argument is the grand declaration of the Upanishads that all that ever existed, exists, or will ever exist is the One Self alone.

If I am not all this, what am I? What is my nature? And how can I arrive at a subjective experience of my real nature. As long as I am aware of the existence of the world and lend it my attention, it exists. But when I draw myself ‘in’ and become solely aware of awareness itself, I abide in my own true nature as Absolute Consciousness-Existence-Bliss. In other words, when the attention is ‘outward’, the world is perceived and when the attention is on the Self and Self alone, one exists as the Self itself. This state of firm abidance in the Absolute is called samadhi in Indian spiritual literature.

Let us consider three of the profound lines of inquiry that the Upanishads offer in the light of Bhagavan’s discourses and writings. The Kenopanishad asks, “Who impels the mind? Enjoined by whom does the vital force proceed to function? At whose behest do men utter speech? What intelligence, indeed, directs the eye and the ears?” All the inner instruments, from the senses to the discriminatory functionality called the intellect, are inert. What is that conscious force that activates the inner instruments? Being themselves devoid of intelligence how are they able to perform intelligent function. The answer is: [It is] due to the presence of the Self and the reflection of its effulgence on the inner instruments. Just like the sun illumines the world and makes it active in a thousand ways yet light itself does not get involved in any activity. The Self, though the uncaused cause of everything, is itself ever agitation-free, still, and devoid of activity. Kenopanishad appropriately calls the Self, the eye of the eye, the ear of the ear, and the mind of the mind.

Let us now turn our attention to the Mandukyopanishad, which according to Swami is the chief and the most profound among all Upanishads, the very kernel of Vedanta. Man’s life is divided into three states: The wakeful state (jagrat), the dream (swapna), and the deep sleep (sushupti). In the wakeful state man leads his life under the thraldom [the state of being under bondage] of the manifold pulls and attractions of the sensory world.

In the dream, man follows his impulses and derives satisfaction in the process. In deep sleep, all the impulses are suspended; and though they still persist, they are not manifest or active. In deep sleep, the mind is latent, in dream, restless, and in the waking stage, active. Although the mind is ‘absent’ during deep sleep, the blissful experience and the rest of a peaceful sleep is not lost on us when we wake up. Thus, the Mandukyopanishad argues that there is a fourth state, distinct from these three, permeating all the three, ever aware and witnessing all the other three states. The glory and the splendor of this ‘state’ cannot be expressed by words or imagined by the mind. In fact, ‘the fourth’ is not actually a state in the strict sense of the term but our own immutable, eternal reality.

The Taittiriyopanishad talks about the five sheaths (koshas) that ‘cover’ the self. The grossest one is the food sheath (annamaya kosha), perceived as the physical body, a transformation of food. The vital airs form the next and subtler sheath (pranamaya kosha), enabling all the physiological functions of the body. Weighing between right and wrong, good and bad is the sheath of the mind, the manomaya kosha. The fixation upon a step with a purpose in view is the functionality of the vijnanamaya kosha. When the joy of achievement is tasted, the anandamaya kosha functions. In the depths beneath and transcending the five sheaths shines the all-pervading, all-permeating atman or the Self with the effulgence of a ‘thousand suns’. To subjectively realize that Self, which is subtler than the subtlest, the very core, the essence as our own reality is the very purpose of human life.

The food sheath (annamaya kosha), the vital air sheath (pranamaya kosha), the mental sheath (manomaya kosha), the intellect sheath (vignanamaya kosha) and the innermost bliss sheath (anandamaya kosha) are all in Brahmanand so, Brahman is inherently ananda [bliss]. Each kosha [sheath] is subtler than the other and they all together can be taken as the body of Brahman. Analyzing the nature of the ‘I’, laying bare the enveloping sheaths, the pancha koshas, through concentrated discrimination, directed inward, penetrate the secret of the atma. (Sutra Vahini).

Who can ever describe or comprehend the Self? It is ‘That’ in the light of which expression and comprehension happen. Even scriptures with the most expressive diction can at best give us only a set of pleasant contradictions rather than a sustained intelligent description. It can only be experienced subjectively in the absolute quietude of the mind and the intellect brought about by intelligent and intense human effort and the blessings and grace of a guru.

Atmic inquiry is not the only way though. Total surrender to the guru, who is the very embodiment of God, done in the fullness of love and reverence will definitely lead one to the most blessed state. Once you have secured a guru, leave everything to him, even the desire for liberation. He knows you better than you know yourself. One must with unrestricted renunciation and sincere earnestness follow the instructions of the teacher and smother the tendencies to drift away from him. This is real tapas. This tapas leads one to the highest stage.     ~Bhagavan Baba

A man used to live by begging, standing at the same place day after day, month after month. The man spent his entire life begging. When he finally died, the citizens decided to bury him on the same spot where he had spent his life begging. When verily a few feet were dug, a huge treasure was found. Standing on wealth immeasurable, the man had spent his life begging in abject, self-imposed penury! How pitiable is our state! Being the inheritors of bliss infinite, we spend our life begging from the world little sense pleasures! If only we stop running after the world and dig into our ‘selves’, all our suffering, too, shall cease forever. Nobody pointed out to the beggar his folly. We have our Swami not only showing us the way all the time but assuring all the help and guidance, and much more. ‘Take one step toward Me and I shall take a hundred toward you’ says He. ‘You do your best, I will do the rest.’ Time to stop ‘begging’ and start ‘digging’. Now!

~Devotional India