(August 1944)
The Upanishads declare
that the Brahman is bliss and teach that it may be won by the liberated
soul. In a well Known passage in the Taittiroya Upanishad, we find a
meemamsa
Or a calculus of bliss. The unit is taken to be the
happiness of a youth, nobly born, well educated, swift, firm and strong and
exercising dominion over the world and all its wealth. This is apparently
regarded as the highest and most undiluted happiness that a kindly fortune can
give anyone in the world. Of a hundred such units is made the bliss of the manushya-gandharvas.
Further steps in the centesimal scale are then given in order-the bliss of the
devagandhervas, of the manes, of various kinds of gods, of Indra, of
Brihaspathi and Brahman. The sage who is free from desires is said to be
experience all these degrees of bliss.
This calculus of bliss is evidently based on the
assumption that the bliss of the Brahman varies not so much in kind as
in degree. It is true that worldly happiness stands at the one end of the scale
and the bliss of Brahman at the other: and that there intervenes between
them even quantitatively a gulf at least as great as that which divides the
infinite, from the infinitesimal. But even so, the difference stated is one of
degree and carries with it the implication that the bliss of the Brahman can
be won.
It is however frequently said that the bliss of
mystical communion is Sui generis and stands in a class by itself. The
difficulty that the mystic feels in describing his unique experience lends
support to this view. A sharp distinction is thus generally made between
Pleasure and happiness, and between happiness and
bliss. Physical pleasures again are distinguished from intellectual pleasures.
The Bhagavat Gita in the 18th chapter classifies
Sukha (or
pleasure) in to three kinds tamasa, rajasa and sattvika. The
lowest kind is described as deluding the soul at first and in its consequences.
It springs out of sleep, sloth and excitement. Higher than this is the
pleasure, which springs from the union of the perceivable objects with the
perceiving senses, which is comparable to nectar at the end. It gives rise to
clear knowledge of the soul. Do these differentia suggest that we have here
radically different kinds of experiences?
It is indeed a fact of experience that pleasures vary
from one another in several respects. Some are intense but short lived. Others
can be prolonged indefinitely. Some give rise to a feeling of satiation and
exhaustion at the end. Others do not leave any associated with a wide variety
of mental activities. Differences such as these suggest that pleasures seem to
vary not so much in kind as in their accompaniments and effects.
William James in his Variety of Religious Experiences
points out the simplest rudiment of
the mystical state is found in so common an experience as the deepened sense of
the significance of a maxim or a formula. He also draws attention to some
remote though nonetheless definite parallelisms between the mystical state and
the abnormal states of consciousness induced by alcohol, chloroform and other
drugs. Writing of the rapture or ecstasy of the mystic,
Professor Elton declares that it bears one highly suspicious mark when
confronted with some analogous states which are artificially induced without
any religious of moral discipline or without any purpose at all. One may wake,
he continues, from the anesthesia of nitrous oxide or chloroform with the
well-known sense of an unspeakable secret, so near us, lately won, but
hopelessly and painfully lost. Then he proceeds to quote a poem, Nirvana at the
Dentist’s, where a patient, desiring to have his teeth pulled out, describes
how he drank the subtle fire of an anesthesia.
Then forward! That sea of nothingness
With my weak arms I beat its billows back;
The voices tinkled far and meaningless;
By delicate degrees, the monstrous, black,
Merciful sea of being without bound
Came; I was one with every drop of it.
Then felt I that Eastern saw profound
Brother and sister, All and Nothing sit’.
A similar conclusion is also suggested by the
experience of some mystics like Wordsworth, whose most uplifting ecstasies came
to them from sensations, particularly sensations of sight and hearing.
If we look on pleasure as a state of mind, incapable
of being analysed and the same in quality whatever the existing cause then the
calculus of bliss in the Upanishad
becomes full if meaning and significance. Pleasure differs from one another not
so much in quality as by reason of their accompaniments and after-effected
causes. The pleasure of excitement, delirium and torpor given by alcohol is
degrading because of its accompaniments after-effects its narrow range and
brief life. The pleasure of the senses tends a sickly feeling of satiety. The
pleasures of the intellect are deemed higher because of their wide range, their
capacity of being renewed frequently, and their freedom from disagreeable
after-effects. Moreover, whole the pleasures of the senses are self-centered;
these higher kinds of pleasure can be revived by ideal suggestion and sympathy
and enhanced by participation with others. The pleasure derived from aesthetic
appreciation is higher still, and it is claimed that it is twin brother to the
bliss experienced in God-realization. These higher pleasures, as the Gita
points out, may require a course of training and discipline before they can be
enjoyed. But they leave no unpleasant after-effects and lead ultimately to
spiritual insight.
This does not mean that we should forget ourselves in
worldly pleasures or that the bliss of the Brahman is degraded by being brought
into close kinship with the lowest pleasure of the senses. Addiction to lowly
pleasure is a sin against the Light which is within us. Compared to the bliss
of the Brahman, all other pleasures are as dust in the balance. And this bliss
can be won only by renunciation and training and discipline. But whatever we
succeed in spiritual realization and feel tranquil happiness without the
disturbing effects of desire, then for the moment we are at the highest reach
of bliss. Thus through pleasures, happiness and bliss may be similar in
quality, we cannot achieve bliss without renunciation and sacrifice.