Panchadasi Chapter
12 Atmananda—The
Bliss of the Self
The Yogi experiences the bliss of Brahman as stated in the previous
chapter. In this chapter the bliss experienced by the unenlightened person is
examined.
In the Brihadaaranyaka Upanishad it is said that every one loves others
only for his or her own happiness and not for the happiness of the person loved.
The husband, wife, son, wealth, animals and all other things are loved only
because they give happiness. This is evident from the fact that when a
person’s wife or son acts in a manner contrary to his wishes, he does not like
them. Even an inveterate miser is willing to spend all his money to cure himself
of a life-threatening disease, showing that his love of himself takes precedence
over his love of money. All other things are loved only as long as they
contribute to one’s own happiness. So all other persons and things are only
means to one’s own happiness, and are not desired for their own sake; but
happiness is desired for its own sake and not as a means to some thing else. A
child, when kissed by its father feels pain by being pricked by the father’s
bristly beard and cries, but the father goes on kissing the child because he
feels happy thereby. This is a clear instance to show that all love is only for
one’s own happiness. Love of the means to happiness shifts from one object to
another, but love of one’s own self ever remains the same. Even when a person
desires to end his life because of poverty, disease, humiliation or any other
reason, it is the body that he wants to get rid of and not the self. Thus the
self is the dearest to every one.
The word ‘Self’ is used in three different senses, namely, figurative
(gauna), illusory (mithya) and primary (mukhya). In the sentence ‘Devadatta is
a lion’, the identification of Devadatta with a lion is figurative. The
purport of this sentence is that Devadatta possesses some of the characteristics
of a lion such as courage, majesty, etc. At the same time the difference between
the two is also clearly understood. In the scriptures sometimes a son is
identified as the self of his father. This identification is figurative.
When a post is wrongly taken to be a man the identification is illusory.
The identification of the self with the body and mind which constitute the five
sheaths falls under this category.
The primary meaning of the word ‘Self’ is the pure unconditioned
witness-consciousness or non-dual Brahman.
When a person desirous of attaining heaven performs the prescribed yajna,
he knows that it is his subtle body that will go to heaven and not his physical
body. He thus looks upon his subtle body as his self.
An aspirant for liberation strives for the realization that he is the
pure unconditioned Self. Here the word ‘Self’ is used in its primary
meaning.
Supreme love is felt for the primary Self. One loves everything related
to the Self, but the love for them is limited and conditional on their giving
happiness. No love is felt for other things.
The degree of love towards various objects of enjoyment varies according
to their proximity to the Self. A son is dearer than wealth, one’s own body is
dearer than one’s son, the sense-organs are dearer than the body, life is
dearer than the sense-organs and the Self is dearer than everything else.
A married couple intensely desires to have a son and is very unhappy till
the wife conceives. After conception there is great worry about safe delivery.
When the child is born there are anxieties about its health and whether all its
faculties such as eyesight, hearing, etc., would be sound. When the child grows
up there is worry about whether he would be intelligent and industrious in
studies. Thereafter there is anxiety about whether he would earn well and become
rich or suffer from poverty and also whether he would lead a good moral life or
not. There is also anxiety about whether he would be healthy and live long or
die prematurely. Thus there is no end to the sorrows of parents. The only way to
avoid sorrows is to avoid attachment to persons and things and to focus his love
on the Self. It should be noted here that attachment is different from love.
Attachment puts one at the mercy of the person or thing to which the attachment
is directed. But love, which by definition is free from any selfish motive,
makes a person independent of the object of love. Love directed equally towards
all living beings ennobles.
Love for the supreme Self is in effect love for all creatures, since they
are not different from the supreme Self.
Since the Self is of the nature of bliss as well as consciousness, the
question arises as to why bliss is not experienced in all modifications of the
mind and only consciousness is experienced. This can be answered by taking the
example of a lamp. When a lamp burns it emits both heat and light, but only
light fills the room and not heat.
When the Self is both bliss and consciousness, how is it that when
consciousness is revealed in a mental modification bliss is also not revealed at
the same time? This is answered by pointing out that though an object has colour,
odour, taste, and touch, only one of these properties is cognized by a
particular sense organ. It is not correct to say that colour, odour, and other
properties of a flower are different from each other and so the example given is
not applicable because bliss and consciousness are not different from each
other. The properties of a flower are not different from one another. If it is
said that they are different because they are cognized by different
sense-organs, then it must be pointed out that there is similarly a seeming
difference between bliss and consciousness brought about by difference in the
composition of the mental state. When Sattvaguna predominates in the mind, both
bliss and consciousness are revealed, while when Rajoguna predominates, only
consciousness is revealed and bliss is obscured.
The Lord says in the Bhagavadgita that there are two paths to liberation.
One is Yoga and the other is the path of knowledge.
One who knows that the Self is dearest does not desire any external
object of enjoyment. Nor does he have aversion towards any thing because he sees
no object inimical to himself. End
of chapter 12
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