- All our surface sensations are a positive, negative or neutral play of the underlying delight of existence like waves and foamings of infinite deep ocean. The true solution to the problem of pain and evil lies in this conception of delight of existence. The essential nature the self-conscious being behind the finite forms is an infinite, inseparable delight of being.
- The soul freeing itself from the inconscience of Matter, discovers the Conscious-Force and the delight hidden in non-sensation of Matter. It is within all forms, all experiences whether pleasant, painful or neutral. It creates the dominating to will to exist in all forms.
- Sat-chit-Ananda are the three aspects of essential Being. In reality It is one but are separable in appearance in our divided consciousness. The divergent views of the old philosophies are based on this divided view.
- When we view everything in the world exist only in relation to Brahman, (Sat or Pure Existence) we see the world as Maya. If it is viewed only in relation to consciousness and its force (chit-shakti aspect) then we will regard it only as a movement of Force. If the world is conceived to be the expression of self-delight (Ananda) of eternally existent being then it becomes the Divine Lila.
- These are the three generalisations of the world of existence in its relation to the Divine which is eternal and stable and is the immutable Sachchidananda. They are expressed in three conceptions of Maya, Prakriti and Lila. Though they appear to be mutually contradictory they are in reality perfectly consistent with and complementary to each other.
- There is one indivisible Conscious Being behind all our experiences imparting its delight. The Conscious Being (Sat-Chit) and Its delight (Ananda) are inseparable. The Conscious Being in its movement creates variations of pleasure, pain and neutral indifference in our sensational existence.
- Our real self is the Conscious Being of Delight (Sat-chit-ananda). Our mental being on the surface is its representation which is subjected to pain, pleasure and indifference. They are the imperfect and the superficial responses of our divided, egoistic, waking consciousness to multiple contacts of the universe. Going beyond our ego if we feel the oneness with all, our reactions will become a perfect and harmonious note of the musical symphony.
- Deep within us, there is much vaster, profounder, truer psychic being which takes delight impartially in all experiences. It secretly supports us in our hardships and sufferings in life. We can awaken to this presence only if we learn to live within. We can remain unaffected and stand back in our entire consciousness from the pain and pleasure of our body, life and mind.
- Our superficial responses are result of our imperfect evolution. They have no absoluteness. Our nature has formed certain habits by which we respond to a particular contact with pleasure, to some other with pain and to some other without any reaction. It is quite within our capacity to return with delight to all our contacts. This is the greater victory for us over our own selves.
- Our nervous being, a slave of habit, has a sense of fixedness in its reactions-reacts to success with pleasure and to defeat with pain. Whereas, our mental being is free and flexible. It can choose its response to its contacts unlike the nervous being.
- It is more difficult to disengage our mind when it comes to pain of our physical body. Because, here, our nerves and body are directly involved. Here also we see that the body is capable of bearing extreme pain in extraordinary situations like war. During normal times only our nervous being reminds body to react to pain.
- In hypnosis the hypnotiser suspends the waking consciousness which is the slave of nervous habits and appeals to the subliminal mental being in the depths. This freedom of our inner mental being can be acquired normally, gradually with true possession by one’s own will.
- Pain of mind and body is a device of Nature, to serve a temporary purpose to sage guard the individual, from the shock of multitudinous world forces. Pain is the nervous and physical recoil from a harmful contact – Upanishad calls it jugupsa. There is necessity of pain as long as Mind is bound in the life and body.
- When Mind becomes free, unegoistic, strikes harmony with all other beings and with universal forces, the necessity of suffering diminishes. When one develops in the heart a oneness with the universal existence, no contact from outside can be harmful.
- Because of our egoistic-narrow preferences we are unable to seize the essence- the Rasa of things, which has taken the imperfect and perverse forms of grief and pain, temporary pleasure or a neutral state of indifference. We must impose the sense of detachment on our nervous being. Only then it will be possible for us to sense the true delight of existence in all is variations.
- We enjoy this universal and variable delight in aesthetic reception of things in Art & Poetry though it is not a pure delight which is supramental and supra-aesthetic. We are able to enjoy the Rasa of sorrowful, even the horrible characters and events described in Art & Poetry because we are liberated in a part of our nature from the grip of our ego. Full liberation can come by a similar liberation in all our parts by a universal perception of things, universal stand point of knowledge, universal detachment from all things.
- Suffering occurs when the conscious force in us fails to receive the external contacts equally because of our self-limiting ego. We must first have titiksa- it means our ability to face, endure and achieve victory over all shocks of life to achieve equality. It must be founded on Sachchidananda consciousness which is All-Bliss. We become neutral to the imperfect touches of pleasure and the perverse touches of pain. This is the first and direct and natural result of the soul’s self-discipline. The Sachchidananda consciousness may be transcendent which is the path of the ascetic or it may be at once transcendent and universal, embracing all which is the path of the ancient Vedic sages.
- The pure self-consciousness in its movement becomes the varied play of Conscious-Force. The delight of existence is at first self-gathered, absorbed and sub-conscious at the level of matter. It emerges as a neutral movement which is not yet called sensation. Further, it emerges with the growth of mind and ego in the triple vibration of pain, pleasure and indifference which is caused by the limitation of force of consciousness in form. Finally, there is conscious and full emergence of Sachchidananda with the qualities of universality and equality. This is the course and movement of the world.
- Why the One Existence should take delight in such a movement? Only in the mutable delight of becoming, the delight of existences is experienced in which all the possibilities of the Infinite are realised, when Sachchidananda which is hidden, begins to discover itself amidst the terms of Its opposites.
- Infinite, in its aspects of Consciousness, self-sustaining Force, Delight, Unity loses itself in manifestation and emerges as finite soul, limited consciousness, insecure balance of world, discordant rhythm of pain & pleasure and discord of forces and beings. In this process of emergence there is intermediary status of imperfection which disappears in final emergence of Sachchidananda.
- How Sachchidananda can emerge amidst this imperfect world?
– Man has to universalise himself and widen his limited mental consciousness to attain superconscient unity.
– The vital being of man should be capable of facing the shocks of the universe without shrinking and with equal delight.
– His physical being must feel itself as one with the whole flow of the indivisible force that is in all things.
– The whole nature of the individual must have a sense of unity, harmony and oneness with the Sachchidananda in all. - Through all this play, the secret reality is always one and the same delight of existence. It is the same in the sub-conscient sleep in matter before the emergence of the individual, the same in the struggle of the Sachchidananda in the varieties, ups and downs, perversions of the effort to find itself in its opposites in a half-conscious state of mind and life of which individual is the centre, it is same delight in the Superconscient into which man must eventually awake and possess in himself.