SOME THOUGHTS ON ATMA---109

[Guest guest]

Loving SAI RAMs,

(continued from posting no.108)

We do not enoy the absolute bliss of Brahman on account of our unintelligent identification with sense objects and beings and also attachments to the world. We feel more secure in the ephemeral pleasures of the world. The experience of Brahman is not possible as long as our mind is attached to this world. We must first negate the the world to reach Brahman. We need to transcend our perceptions, emotions and thoughts and transcend our equipment to experience the Self. Once we realise the Self, everything merges into one homogeneous experience of unbroken bliss. It is like the dream world and its experiences merging into the waker`s mind when the dreamer awakens to the waking state. After waking up, the dreamer realises that the entire dream is nothing but an aspect of mind. For realising this, he has to transcend the dream world. As long as the dreamer is confined to the dream world, he can not conceive the waker`s mind. Similarly, he can not remain in the limitations of this world and at the same time experience Brahman. Vedanta advises that we should negate the terrestrial world in order to reach the Infinite Unbroken Bliss of Brahman.

 

The Upanishads declare that BRAHMA, the Creator and other Gods enjoy in proportion only a minute particle of the unbroken bliss. The bliss of Self-Realization is beyond human conception. Spiritual Masters have been ceaselessly trying to allure mankind to that Supreme Bliss. But man fails to conceive the resplendence and glory of such an experience . An unbroken entity can be measured only in terms of known factors. The bliss of realisation can be compared only to the joys familiar to mankind. Man knows the joys of the world and he can also imagine ethereal enjoyments of the deities in heaven. The aggregate of the happiness of the entire living kingdom, all the happiness enjoyed by the celestial beings in heaven and that enjoyed by Lord Brahma Himself together represent only an infinitesimal fraction (lava) of that absolute bliss, asserts the Upanishad. The bliss of Brahman is not totally beyond the comprehension of the ordinary man. The Sruti clearly states that the Bliss of Brahman is realised by him only in whom there is no vestige of craving and who is full of Revelation and therefore absolutely free from sin. The Brihadaranyaka and Taittireeya Upanishads give a heirarchy of bliss leading upto the bliss of Brahman. The Sruti declares that the bliss in the human being and in the yonder Sun are the same. The Chandogya Upanishad says that Infinite Truth alone is happiness which should be sought after( Bhoomaiva Sukham Bhoomatveva vigjasitavyam).

 

(to be continued)

G.Balasubramanian