SAT CIT ANANDA
All the human suffering stems from the fact that we veer away from the eternal truth that we are ‘that’.
The absolute reality
What is true nature of absolute reality, this question has perplexed mankind since the beginning of time. For some, it is ‘divine,’ while others call it ‘God,’ still others term it ‘being.’ Common man in India calls it ‘Brahma.’ Vedas the ancient Hindu text defines the nature of this ultimate reality Brahman as pure consciousness without a trace of materiality. This absolute reality is full of bliss. That is why; Vedic rishis defines Brahman in one word: sat-cit-ananda. Existence consciousness bliss is what sat-cit-ananda roughly means. And to experience sat-cit-ananda is to achieve the ultimate goal of the spiritual journey in Hinduism.
Brahman
The single phrase Satcitananda is regarded as the most complete description of Brahman that can be given. The ultimate reality Brahman is one without the second. It is beyond name or form, devoid of qualities, without beginning or end. It is the unchanging truth, beyond space, time and causation. But, this vast, infinite Brahman manifests itself as the Universe and the individual beings through its unfathomable power of ‘maya.’
The circle of desire
Every human being longs for happiness, but is always surrounded by sorrows. The reason is the unending wishes for desires. Vedas describes desires in detail, according to them; there are two kinds of desires: fundamental and topical desires. Liking for sweets, watching movies, gossiping with friends etc are topical kind of desires. There are three desires in the fundamental desires category. We all hope to live forever, this is first desire. Sometimes, we only know half of the story/thing, the desire to listen/know the other half/remaining information, is second kind of desire. And, finally third fundamental desire is to gain as much knowledge as possible during our lifetime. This is called the hunger for knowledge. It may be that we may not have any interest in the lesson taught in school/college/conference etc, but that doesn’t mean we have no interest in gaining any kind of knowledge. So wishing to gain knowledge and wanting to learn new things is the third desire. Sat means the desire to live, ananda means the desire that life should be happy and chit is the desire to acquire knowledge. Not knowing this basic truth, we live our lives lost in the nonessentials.
Sat
In the sixth chapter of Chhandogya Upanishad, we find a dialogue between a sage and his son, Shvetaketu. The question is ‘what is that knowledge by which everything becomes known?’ To fully understand the question, we must appreciate the concept ‘by knowing the cause one can know the effects.’ For example, if one know clay, one know all pots made of clay or by knowing iron one understand all implements made of iron, etc.’ In the same way, if we enquire deeply enough, the Upanishads claim we shall see that all existent things are nothing but existence itself. ‘Sat’ is the term used for pure existence. We, our body, our mind, and everything that we see around us, are essentially nothing but pure existence, appearing in diverse forms, because of ‘maya.’ Hence, ignorance means being unaware of our ‘sat’ nature and consequently being identified with the body-mind complex, along with all its sufferings. The eternal truth is that we are the immortal, unchanging ‘sat’ and the world is a mere shadow of ‘maya,’ which is passing over us.
Cit
In the Kena Upanishad, we find a very interesting question. The question is ‘we see, hear, speak and think, but what power impels our eyes to see, ears to hear, tongue to speak, and mind to think?’ The answer given is “‘it’ is the ear of the ear, mind of the mind and eye of the eye.” Simply put, it is ‘cit’ or pure consciousness. Here is a point to understand, we humans understand consciousness through our feelings and thoughts. But according to Upanishad, ‘cit’ or consciousness is not a product of the body and the mind. ‘Cit’ pervades all illumines the mind, seeing, hearing, feeling, speaking etc. ‘Cit’ is known only through its manifestations in the various functions of the mind, organs and body. Hence, the answer to the question, “‘it’ is the ear of the ear, mind of the mind and eye of the eye.” Our true ‘cit’ is not an experience, yet all experience shine in it. To the jnani, ‘cit’ is experienced in each experience.
Ananda
The happiness which all of us crave for, what is this happiness? A question is asked in a section of Taittiriya Upanishad, ‘whether happiness is born of sense contact between subject or object or whether happiness is the very nature of the self?’ The Upanishad gives us a model of maximum human happiness. Imagine a young man, physically strong, bursting with vitality and energy. He is highly educated and morally upright. Old age, physical weakness, ignorance and moral corruption, which are all cause of misery, are ruled out. Upanishad gives this fortunate young man plenty of cash, all the wealth of the world. Now imagine how happy the young man is, this is unit of human happiness. Is it possible to get even greater happiness? Yes, but not in this human existence. Because these earthly material objects of enjoyment like; youth, health, wealth, highly educated etc, all have their limitations. Beyond this familiar plane of existence, there are superior world, finer objects of enjoyments and powerful bodies designed for greater enjoyment. The Upanishads speaks of an ascending ladder of lokas or worlds. And, as one ascends to these higher heavens, happiness is multiplied by a hundred times at each level. In the highest heaven, happiness is millions and billions of times greater than the maximum of human happiness. The Upanishad says that all happiness is only a reflection of the happiness of the self. The bliss of the self is reflected in the serene mind and experienced as happiness. We in our ignorance feels that happiness is due to the enjoyment of a variety of sense objects and spend our life trying to get happiness out of sense enjoyment. If we can actually make the mind calm enough, it will be filled with happiness – without need of external objects. For example, as we can see the reflection of our face in different mirrors and the quality of the mirror determines the quality of the reflection. Just as these varied reflections do not affect our face, the self is not affected by the variations in happiness in all the mediums. Upon realizing, the difference of subject and object disappear and all is known to be bliss; ananda itself.
It is a mind’s trick
If the mind, which is the instrument of knowledge and is the basis of all activity, subsides, the perception of the world as an objective reality ceases. As long as this illusory sense sustains, the perception of ‘rope of being wrongly assumed to be a snake remains’ The spiritual experience of the nature of self as sat-cit-ananda is an experience of the self and not of the mind. This experience of self is obtained through the self in the self, above the mind and the intellect. It is not subjected to the realm of cause and effect nor is this experience the result of any particular process. The mind acquires the heat; through the ethical process of devotion and self sacrifice, but the light of spiritual experience is above all. Fire is not a modification of heat, but it is the culmination of heat. The same applies to spiritual experience; the new light is created in the inner being of man, which concerts the whole conception of self into the infinity of sa-cit-ananda. The self is ever achieved, but to make the ever achieved a realized experience we need methods of meditation and discipline which slowly removes the covering of nescience. As long as fire is not kindled, we rub pieces of wood together, but when fire is kindled, the process is given up.
Hindrance in realization
In the quest of this quest, four major obstacles have to be overcome. They are: avidya prathibandhakam, prajna prathibandhakam, kutharka prathibandhakam and Viparyaya Duraagraha prathibandhakam. Avidya prathibandhakam is the impediment that arises out of the feeling that one is too week and powerless to seek the divine. As long as this sense of weakness remain one cannot understand the one true self. Prajna prathibandhakam is the obstacle that is created by self conceit, where one feels that he knows everything and is unwilling to learn from elders, he becomes unfit for understanding the spiritual quest. The third, Kutharka prathibandhakam is faced by those who are caught up in illogical reasoning and false arguments. And, the final, Viparyaya Duraagraha prathibandhakam is caused by ignorance of one’s inner reality and a refusal to make the effort to understand it. The cause of this arrogance is Maya; delusion. Maya is present when one sees the unreal as real and the real as unreal. But, those who have attained the inner vision see the universe as the manifestation of the Brahman. For example, in Narasimha Avatar, Prahlada and Hiranyaakasipu represents the two opposing views regarding the universe. Hiranyaakasipu viewed a pillar as only a pillar, while Prahlada saw in it; pillar, the immanence of Narayana.
How to attain
When the mirror of body-consciousness is removed, the image of the individual consciousness will also go. Then only the permanent Brahman remains. To attain that we have to shed sixteen aspects that are undesirable to us. The sixteen are as follows. Eight types of pride; pride of physical strength, of birth, of scholarship, wealth, penance, beauty, youth and power. Six kinds of enemies: desire, anger, greed, infatuation, arrogance and envy. And the raja guna: passionate traits and tamas guna; slothful traits. It is only when these sixteen evil traits are eliminated then we can achieve fullness. These traits are preventing us from realizing our essential divinity. The scriptures have declared that among birds, the crow is the meanest, among animals, the donkey is the meanest and among men, the one who indulge in slander is most despicable. The crow is mean because it doesn’t relish good food and prefer only rotten things. The donkey because it carries only dirty clothes and is always dirty. The slander has a foul tongue and is the meanest among human beings.
Man’s illusion
The greatest sin man commits is to forget his divinity and failing to recognize his true nature, considers himself a distinct individual and fill his mind with desires and hatred. We should not look upon human existence as something pitiful or weak. Man is the embodiment of divine sat-cit-ananda. The divine in him is always radiating light and bliss. But because of the barriers of bad thoughts, he is unable to experience this ultimate reality. The following story illustrates the relationship between the divine and the individual. The story goes like this: On a hill, there is a boulder. A sculptor sits on the boulder and sculpts out of it an idol of Krishna. The piece of rock chiselled out of the boulder in making the idol is cast away. The Krishna idol is duly installed in a temple for worship. No one bothers about the piece of stone left on the hill. But, silently the left behind pieces of stone proclaim the truth ‘tat thwam asi.’ The stone say ‘we are same as the idol you worship in the temple.’ The stone idol of Krishna and broken pieces on the hill came out of the same boulder. It was only later when one part became idol and the other parts were used for building or other purposes. This basic truth has to be understood.
References in holy texts
The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad; 800-600 BCE, is among the Hindu texts which links and then discusses atman or soul, Brahman or ultimate reality, awareness, joy and bliss. The Chhandogya Upanishad; 800-600 BCE, discusses atman and Brahman, these being identical to ‘that which shines and glows both inside and outside,’ ‘pure knowledge,’ ‘one’s inner most being,’ ‘highest light,’ etc. Taittiriya Upanishad and other minor Upanishads, also discusses atman and Brahman in sat-cit-ananda. An early mention of word sat-cit-ananda is in Tejobindu Upanishad composed before the 4th century CE. Sat-cit-ananda is an epithet for Brahman, considered indescribable, unitary, ultimate, unchanging reality in Hinduism. Tulsidas considered Rama as sat-cit-ananda.
Essence of Upanishads
All the Upanishads consistently proclaim that we are one with Brahman, that we are verily sat-cit-ananda. And, so is everything else, whole universe is Brahman. This is the one central idea throughout all of the Upanishads. And once realized, results in freedom: ultimate and permanent.