Tag Archives: brahman

satyam jn~Anam anantam Brahma Part 4

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sat chit Ananda

satyam jn~Anam anantam is sometimes called as sat chit Ananda in the scriptures.

I am sat, independent existence, which provides existence to all names and forms. This existence is eternal. Just as a wave has no existence apart from water, water is the only existence of all wave forms, so also, I, sat, am the existence of all varied forms. Is-ness of all forms is existence; this unqualified existence am I.

I am awareness, chit. Any thought presupposes this awareness. Mind is rendered capable of generating thoughts due to the mere presence of consciousness. Consciousness gives me objective knowledge when thoughts are generated in the mind. It is present whether one is awake, dreaming or in deep sleep. This consciousness is me.

I am Ananda, nature of happiness. How can ananta and Ananda be the same? Whenever we experience any sensual pleasure, music, or a pleasant sight etc, what happens is, that the demanding, I , the wanting I, is satisfied temporarily; there is no more seeking for some time. That seeking being absent, I actually experience myself as being limitless. This limitlessness is fullness, where there are no inhibitions, no desires. It is my own self and in those rare moments I experience myself as the form of happiness. Happiness should not be taken as something that I experience. The absence of my limitedness is itself the manifestation of my being limitless, in that limitlessness there is no trace of divisions, sadness, etc. This Ananda, infinitude is my nature. I am Ananda. Continue reading →

Nothing Dies (Q. 308)

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Q. I’ve been thinking about death for a long while and last night something came to me that I wanted to share with you. It’s not so much a question, though. Rather, I’m just wondering whether my thinking is ‘on the right lines’.

 Ok, imagine a dead body lying in a coffin. Let’s say that this person lying there is called John Doe. Many people would believe that now John Doe is dead, something would have left the body, that this ‘John Doe’ identity is no longer there. My thinking from what I’ve learned about Vedanta so far, is that this ‘John Doe’ was probably never there as was perceived in the first place. Continue reading →

Why do I Feel Unhappy? Why do I Feel Depressed?

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Questioner: “I am Brahman” is the simple and straightforward message of Advaita. Brahman is synonymous with Beingness, Consciousness and Happiness. If I = Happiness, I should be always happy, should never be depressed. But I am overcome by the feelings of unhappiness, I get depressed. How come?

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Well, the answer is “You” (I) can never not be Happy.

Out of Beingness – Consciousness – Happiness, the first two are self-evident. We do not require an external proof to tell me that I exist or that I am conscious. Can you ever say “I am not here” or “I am not conscious”? You have to be there and be present to say, “I am not here.” Similarly, I have to be conscious to say, “I am not conscious.”

In the same way, “I” can never ever be other than Happiness.

What is then the “feel” of unhappiness or depression that arises?

The “feel” cannot be “I” nor can it belong to “I”. That “feel” must obviously be something other than “I”. That is to say that such a feeling cannot be real because Brahman is the only “thing” that is Real. If the feeling is not real, it has to be an imaginary thing for, “I” would never say: “I am unhappy.”

But a Ramesam or a Tom or Dick do “feel” unhappy and say: “I am unhappy; I feel depressed. I am suffering.”

Continue reading →

Where the mind cannot reach (Q. 307)

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Q: I am allowing life to teach me as I go through it, but I’m not finding it easy.  Most of the time I feel I don’t want to even speak because I feel nothing I say is ‘correct’.  At the same time, however, I feel that even if I do speak, whatever I say would not be ‘wrong’ because ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, ‘correct’ and ‘incorrect’ do not exist.  Words and concepts are a massive hindrance to my understanding, yet I cannot overcome them.

 I want to say that I know that everything is Brahman, but then something says, ‘you can’t ‘know’ that everything is Brahman because that cannot be known with the mind’, so I’m always hitting a wall. Continue reading →

Death and Deathlessness

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Advaita Vedanta looks at death from 3 angles: as death of the gross body, death of the subtle body and no-death. All of us agree that the gross body dies, meaning that with death its present form is gone for good. It goes back to its basic components, in vedantic terms “to the elements”, which then take the shape of different forms: ash, earth, plants, worms etc.

In Christianity there is the belief of „resurrection in flesh“ which is supposed to happen for the virtuous ones after the last judgment day – although hardly anybody seems to take this seriously anymore, at least in Europe. In increasing numbers, people have taken to a sober viewpoint, basing their existence entirely on matter and considering themselves as merely flesh. For them there is only gross body, even what Vedanta calls subtle body functions – i.e. sense perceptions or thoughts or feelings – are believed to be operations of the gross body, nerves and brain in action. Continue reading →

satyam j~nAnam anantam brahma (Part 3)

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Till now we have seen that Brahman is anantam satyam…limitless existence. Now let us consider the word, j~nAnam Even this word has a regular meaning and an implied meaning. The regular meaning would be ‘knowledge of something; Computer knowledge, book knowledge, pencil knowledge etc mean the knowledge of a computer, the knowledge ‘of ’ a pencil. I perceive an object, then it enters my mind, as it were, and a corresponding thought modification takes place in the mind. This thought (vRRiti) itself is cognition.

When a thought modification does not take place in the mind, meaning, when a thought is not generated, then cognition does not take place; for e.g., I might be sitting in front of the television, but might be thinking about my child. In spite of the movie running on the screen and the familiar music in the background, I am blissfully unaware of it all because the mind is generating another thought, the child thought. I can ‘know’ the movie and music only when the mind entertains the respective thoughts. Hence, knowledge of an object is its thought in the mind. Continue reading →

Meenakshi: satyam j~nAnam anantam brahma (Part 2)

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As we saw earlier, a word can convey a normal meaning and an implied meaning too. When I say, “I am tall”; it means this physical body is tall. In the very next moment when I say, “I am elated”; it does not mean the physical body is elated. Here, the word ‘I’ implies the mind, not the physical body. This is how, we first take the normal, routine meaning and whenever it does not make sense, we apply the alternate, implied meaning.

Let us take another example for clarity. We say “I bought water from the grocery store”. Here when we say so, we very well know that the water comes with a bottle. We cannot buy just water. So, the bottle is included in the meaning. When we say “I drank water”, we, however, do not include the bottle, we mean only the water. So, we took an implied meaning in this case. Continue reading →

Meenakshi: satyam j~nAnam anantam brahma (Part 1)

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satyam j~nAnam anantam brahma (sat chit Ananda)

 These three words are oft repeated in vedAnta. We are used to the gross world and perceive objects using our sense organs. So, we tend to take the meaning of this sentence as “There is a Brahman as an object, which I will perceive, which has the qualities of satyam, jnA~nam and anantham”. This is not the case. They are not qualities of Brahman. Qualities are possible only for objects. Brahman is the very subject without any qualities.

These words are called lakshaNa, meaning the words that indicate the nature of brahman. A word, as such is a qualifier for an object. When we say table, we are giving a name to a form with 4 legs. The name qualifies the form; but here the words are doing a different job.  They are bringing out the nature (svarUpa) of Brahman by implication. Continue reading →

How did ‘I’ come to deceive itself? (Q. 304)

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Q: How did ‘I’, the all knowing, all loving, all powerful, the absolute & infinite blissful ONE, without a second, come to deceive itself, and place itself in this illusion of illusions? How or why did the Ultimate Reality have this come to pass? (Sept 2010)

A: The spirit of your question is unanswerable – it is effectively asking why there is Self-ignorance and this is said to be anirvachanIya – inexplicable. From the standpoint of absolute reality, of course, there is no deception because there is no creation; and there is no illusion because there are no persons to be deluded. There is only brahman – satyam j~nAnam anantam as the taittirIya upaniShad says, limitless consciousness. It is only from the perspective of this apparently limited entity, the mind of the person, that there seems to be a problem. Once the truth is realized, it is also seen that there is no problem because everything is brahman – sarvaM khalvidam brahma.