Dayananda on Ananda

Ātman-bliss confusion

Brahma-ātman is presented in the śāstra as ānanda. This one experiential word ‘ānanda’ is frequently a cause for confusion. The Taittirīyopaniṣad presents Brahman as satyam jñānam anantaṁ. These three words are equivalent to sat-cit and ānanda.

The meaning of the word ānanda is ananta, limitlessness. The word, ‘satya’ which is generally an attribute to a thing existent in time, is in apposition with the word ananta. Because of the qualifying word ananta, satya is released from the three-fold limitations of space, time and object-status.

At the same time, being the cause of everything, satya is the truth of everything that is dependent upon it. And satya is also jñāna, which as a word can mean knower or knowledge or even known. But with the word ananta, the limited meaning of jñāna is removed and jñāna, the invariable consciousness presence in all these three, becomes its meaning.

The invariable content of the knower-known-knowledge is consciousness, which is satya. This satyam-jñānam-anantam, the consciousness, ātman, is predicated to Brahman which is the cause of the entire jagat. Later in the Taittirīyopaniṣad and elsewhere in the upaniṣads, the word ānanda is used in the place of ananta, which is the svarūpa of ātman. 

Here, the word ‘ānanda’ can be translated as bliss if ānanda is experiential. But when it is a word unfolding the svarūpa of ātman, its translation can never be bliss. A special bliss experience is not going to announce, ‘I am ātman bliss,’ so that it can be recognised as unlike any other bliss experienced before.

Even if there is an experience of bliss, as modern Vedanta promises, the experience is only as good as we interpret it. And the interpretation is again only as good as our knowledge. Self-knowledge requires a means of knowledge for which we have no refuge except the śruti. If the śruti is presented as theory, the seeker’s initial confusion gets confounded.

Then what is the necessity for using the experiential word ānanda? The word serves two purposes: Firstly, it shows that the knowledge of ātman is desirable because ātman Is ānanda svarūpa. Secondly, it shows that the source of all forms of ānanda is nothing but the limitlessness of ātman.

If ānanda is translated as bliss instead of limitlessness or fullness, the seeker is led to believe that there is a special bliss hitherto not experienced. In fact, the śāstra says that any form of ānanda, whether it is born of sensory experience, viṣayānanda, or in the wake of some discovery, vidyānanda or by disciplines of yoga, yogānanda, is nothing but svarūpānanda. 

The word ānanda, therefore, is meant to draw the attention of the seeker to oneself as the source of all ānanda. It means the seeker is limitlessness, fullness, which is experienced as happiness whenever the mind meets with the required disposition. The recognition of this fact removes the error of seeing myself as unhappy, ignorant and mortal. So the meaning of the words sat, cit and ānanda is important in helping the seeker recognise the self as free from all attributes .

~Dayananda