Nature of the Self
Everyone, without exception, wants to be happy – at all times and at all places. Happiness is our highest goal. All our suffering, struggle, and effort invariably are exercises towards the attainment of happiness. Happiness is the one point where all our diverging natures converge.
The means by which one attains happiness varies from person to person. What people perceive as joy also varies. The source of happiness is generally considered to be one or more of the following: health, food, beauty, materials, money, fame, power, love, social status, family, art, travel, knowledge, etc. Needless to say, what brings happiness to one might bring misery to another. However, the very nature of Bliss, the value, does not diverge. We know from our experience that Bliss is a state of completeness where no inadequacy is felt. This state of fulfilment, even if it lasts for a fleeting moment, is essentially the same for everyone.
Two people who are both happy will be alike in their mental state but the same cannot be said about two people who are both unhappy![1]
Joy has an absolute form but pleasure and sorrow have a multitude of forms, and at a deeper level, they are all illusions.[2]
This absolute state of Joy is similar to the blissful experience of sound sleep. As we discussed earlier, all demands, desires, and differences disappear in sound sleep. Even the maladies of the body cease to exist then. It is a state of absolute fulfilment, so we don’t feel the need of a second object. Doesn’t this suggest that joy is innate but sorrow is externally thrust upon us? Over-indulgence in the external world brings sorrow in the end—as many of us would have experienced after over-eating, binge-watching a web series, or being in the shower for a long time. It follows the law of diminishing returns.
There is no doubt that happiness can also arise from external influences. But the joy we gain from external sources is short-lived and eventually leads to sorrow because it operates in the material world. However, the Bliss we realize internally does not lead to sorrow. And sorrow cannot be generated within, for our true state is Bliss, not agony.
Light, like happiness, is a positive entity whereas darkness is a negative one. Darkness doesn’t exist as an independent entity but rather, it is the absence of light. Sorrow, just like darkness, does not have an independent existence. It is just the absence of joy.
When we ask someone How are you? to enquire after their well-being, if the answer we receive is I am doing fine or I’m great, we don’t see the need to ask any more questions. We will not ask them Why are you happy? But if the answer we get is I am not doing well or I’m feeling sad, we tend to question them further—Why? What happened? Why are you sad? and so on.
If someone has learnt a skill or an art that we are immensely interested in, we ask him How do you know that? or How did you learn that? It is unlikely that we will ask him Why do you know that?
Don’t these instances reveal that existence, awareness, and happiness are natural states of every living being? Even in the physical world, concepts such as equilibrium and valency point to a similar truth.
Irrespective of our physical or mental condition, we wish to live on forever, learn everything, possess everything, and become fulfilled. Even the man on his deathbed seeks the elixir of life, the weakling desires the gold medal, and the ignoramus desires the top prize. These are not merely desires driven by external forces but our inner nature that motivates us to seek wisdom and joy through these means.[3]
Even in the extreme case of someone who wishes to end his life, it is only a result of being unable to find joy and the helplessness of not being able to fulfil desires. Will a truly happy man commit suicide?
In sum, our ultimate ambition is eternal existence, eternal awareness, and eternal happiness.
Further, nobody truly wants to be a subordinate to another; in fact, most people wish to dominate over the others. This desire for absolute freedom and absolute authority accelerates one’s zeal for eternity. This is a quest after perfection.[4]
Hinduism identifies this desire in a sublime way, considering it to be in-built as the very nature of our own selves. Absolute Existence (sat), Absolute Awareness (cit), and Absolute Bliss (ānanda) that are independent of external factors comprise the nature of the Self (ātman).
The fundamental nature of ātman (or Brahman) is sat-cit-ānanda.
When we realize the true Self, nothing remains other than our own absolute existence and absolute awareness; sat-cit-ānanda is a non-dual state that goes beyond me and other, freedom and bondage, winner and loser, authority and submission. There is only Bliss, nothing else.[5] This is mokṣa.
Trying to achieve sat-cit-ānanda by materialistic means often leads to corruption and ruin. Those who seek existence, awareness, and bliss from outwardly sources try to establish authority over others. They assert their own freedom at the cost of another’s and invariably become tyrants, blemishing humankind. Sat-cit-ānanda is not something to ‘attain’ but it is something to ‘realize,’ for it is always within.
Of the two paths in attaining self-supremacy, Sanātana-dharma advocates the spiritual path, which is essentially inward and exhibits reasoned disregard towards the path of materialism, which is outward. After all, materialism can never be successful in the absolute sense.
We must never forget, however, that Sanātana-dharma is brutally practical and never takes refuge in a utopia. It recognizes the material world, giving it its due, but primarily encourages one to elevate to the spiritualistic realm.[6]
Artha is an instrumental value—it is only a means and never an end in itself. This is why in the conception of the four-fold objectives of human life, the fundamental idea is to manage demand (kāma) and supply (artha) by the global compromise (dharma) in order to attain Bliss (mokṣa).
Materials are inevitable for life but when they are pursued for their own sake without adherence to dharma and without the larger goal of mokṣa, what invariably follows is the destruction of the self and the surroundings.
In fact, the world is conceived as an instrument to go beyond the dualities of the world—like a raft that floats on the water in a bid to cross the ocean and is then left behind as we proceed to the destination.[7]
Mokṣa is the ultimate value and Ānanda, which is the very nature of mokṣa, is the fundamental value. All others are secondary and instrumental values.[8]
[1] The Russian author Leo Tolstoy canonized this idea in the opening lines of his novel Anna Karenina – “All happy homes are alike. But every unhappy home is unhappy in its own way.”
[2] Both sukha (comfortable, well, pleasant, agreeable) and duḥkha (uncomfortable, miserable, unpleasant, disagreeable) can be treated as illusory because they come and go; whereas ānanda (Bliss) is our very nature and is eternal.
[3] See the ānanda-vallī (which is Section 2) of Taittirīyopaniṣad.
[4] This phrase has been immortalized in the title of the Miller Lectures given by M Hiriyanna in 1940 (Published in Journal of the Madras University, Vol. 13, Part 2)
[5] …raso vai saḥ। rasaṃ hy-evāyaṃ labdhvānandī bhavati। ko hy-evānyāt-kaḥ prāṇyāt। yad-eṣa ākāśa ānando na syāt। eṣa hy-evānandayāti॥ —Taittirīyopaniṣad 2.7
[6] The evolution from the material to the spiritual has been put forth in the framework of the pañca-kośa (‘five realms’) of the body-mind unit (Taittirīyopaniṣad 2.1–9) – Annamaya-kośa (realm of matter), Prāṇamaya-kośa (realm of vitality), Manomaya-kośa (realm of mind), Vijñānamaya-kośa (realm of experiential wisdom), and ānandamaya-kośa (realm of Bliss).
Anna (food) builds the cells of the human body; annamayakośa works at the level of the body.
Prāṇa (breath) represents the energy drawn from the food; prāṇamaya-kośa works at the level of the senses.
Manas (mind) uses energy to produce thoughts; manomaya-kośa works at the level of the mind.
Vijñāna (experiential wisdom) further builds on the thoughts in a systematic manner and internalizes it as wisdom; vijñānamaya-kośa works at the level of wisdom.
ānanda (bliss) is the result of applying the wisdom to refine emotions; ānandamaya-kośa works at the level of the Self.
[7] tyaja dharmam-adharmaṃ ca ubhe satyānṛte tyaja।
ubhe satyānṛte tyaktvā yena tyajasi tat-tyaja॥ —Saṃnyāsopaniṣad 2.12
[8] See Bhagavad-gītā 5.25; 18.53, 54 as well as Īśāvāsyopaniṣad 7, Kaṭhopaniṣad 2.3.14, Muṇḍakopaniṣad 3.2.9, Śvetāśvataropaniṣad 1.7, Bṛhadāraṇyakopaniṣad 4.4.6
To be continued.
