[Advaita-l] ​Happiness as the nature of the self, svarUpa of mokSha.

[Ananta Chaitanya [Sarasvati]]

Namaste.

(
https://anythingwise.blogspot.com/2026/01/happiness-as-nature-of-self-svarupa-of.html
)

The Self by svarUpa is sat, chit and Ananda. These are not three attributes
as they appear to be in their translations, at least the former two, as
existence, consciousness and bliss. All three words have a specific
connotation each, and they point to the same vastu, entity. The three are
used to take away their loaded meanings. All this is detailed by Bhagavan
Bhashyakara under the Taittiriya mantra: satyam j~nAnam anantaM brahma.
However, I would like to offer an additional perspective in the following
analysis, which came up while teaching Vicharasagara the 2nd time. Its been
several months since, but I hope to be able to give a certain angle to this.

Out of sat, chit and Ananda that are the svarUpa dharma (for a lack of a
better word), sat is considered as sAmAnya while chit and Ananda are said
to be visheSha, based on the fact that all jIvas know that the exist. They
don't hunt for their existence, but they want it to continue by wanting to
live on and on. However, they hanker after Ananda, they search for
happiness. They don't know that they are the very Ananda they are looking
for! Where does chit fit into all this? Vicharasagara too calls this as
visheSha, but if one takes another look at it, one would agree that all
know that they are conscious entities. No one needs to point it out to
them, just like they know they exist and no one need point that out to
them. This would put chit right alongside of sat as sAmAnya dharma, not
visheSha like Ananda. Ananda is the make or break of all pursuits and hence
the culmination into mokSha. One can also take sAmAnya to mean easy to
understand with little or no inquiry in this context.

Having established that Ananda is the only visheSha, lets see what is known
when more or less clearly or at least understood so. Now we all know that
the advitiyatva of all this is definitely visheSha, that is not the focus
here. That we do not know due to avidyA causing an AvaraNa, veiling one's
own svarUpa. [If one understands that this is svarUpalakShaNa of AtmA, one
would know that all sattA is AtmasattA, all that is chaitanya is
Atmachaitanya and any Ananda is nothing but AtmAnanda.] The focus area here
is that avasthAtrayaparIkShA also has the following interesting differences
in manifestation of sat, chit or Ananda:

In waking: sat and chit are manifest, Ananda is veiled.
In dream: sat and chit are manifest, Ananda is veiled.
In deep sleep: sat and chit are veiled, Ananda is manifest!

All three never manifest together in any of these three states. If all
three were to manifest simultaneously, we wouldn't struggle across lives to
break out of saMsAra. The deep sleep is one that gives a glimpse into our
AnandasvarUpa where we are happy even without any object, neither a waking
one, nor a dream one. The recollection of sleeping happily and not knowing
anything (else) shows that the sat-chit aspects are veiled while Ananda is
manifest. The Ananda is not objectified, just like our being existent and
conscious is not objectified. There is a massive misunderstanding when one
says one is happy that somehow this is positively objectified happiness. It
is not. If one recalls priya, moda and pramoda gradations of happiness as
discussed in most Vedanta texts, they tell us that the craving for any
object takes us away from svarUpAnanda and that object being obtained, the
craving goes away and the svarUpAnanda manifests be it via the same vRtti
or better still as Vicharasagara says via another AnandavRtti. Again,
AnandavRtti also doesn't mean that svarUpAnanda is an object of that vRtti.

The anubhava word is misunderstood very badly due to the saMskAra of the
English word experience, where an object is almost included. anubhava is
actually the svarUpa of Atma itself, being interchangeable with j~nAna.
Incidentally today, I came across this in Bhagavan Chitsvarupacharya's TIkA
on Naishkarmyasiddhi where he glosses over the word svAtmAnubhava as svaH
cha asau AtmA cha svAtmA and then, svAtmA cha asau anubhavaH cha
svAtmAnubhavaH. Oneself is AtmA and that itself is anubhava. So, one cannot
have an experience of AtmA as an object, ever! That is to say one cannot
know AtmA as an object, ever. And this also means that one cannot have
anubhava of Ananda as an object, ever.

When everything else ceases to be, what remains is you, the Self, which is
Ananda. There is no positive experience of Ananda. In deep sleep though,
there being no object, but avidyA being there, what reflects in avidyA is
Ananda, which was always there in waking and dream too, but it was
suppressed by the waking and dream object-noise. To manifest Ananda in
waking and dream, we necessarily need the desire for the object to vanish,
which remove the AvaraNa on Ananda in that moment, when the vikShepa
vanishes with the desire. In contrast, to manifest Ananda in deep sleep, we
don't need anything since there is desire for the object at that time, nor
is there any object.

Those who have difficulty in landing on this Ananda as svarUpa of oneself
using suShupti as an example, almost always need samAdhyanubhava, where
sat, chit and Ananda all three manifest together. Of course, even this
can't establish advitIyatva of AtmA, which only Shruti can bring in. There
is a third way of using tarka, pure tarka which is as follows. All the
analysis as pointed out by any Vedanta text in the context of how
viShayAnanda takes place holds good. In short, if the viShaya had Ananda,
everyone would like the same viShaya and even one who finds happiness in
that object would find it all the time. Neither is the case, but there is
definite happiness felt in that object. It should have come from somewhere.
pArisheShAt, it belongs to the only one remaining, the subject that
objectifies, meaning AtmA, one's very own Self. Ergo, AtmA is AnandasvarUpa.

gurupAdukAbhyAm
Kind rgds,
--Ananta Chaitanya
/* येनेदं सर्वं विजानाति, तं केन विजानीयात्। Through what should one know
That, owing to which all this is known! [Br.Up. 4.5.15] */