New Member Introduction: Let us welccome Sri Ramgopal

[Guest guest]

Namaste:

 

On behalf of all of you, let me welcome Sri Ramgopal, a new member to

the list. We can look forward to his active participation with his

thoughtful insights.

 

Warmest regards,

 

Ram Chandran

 

================================

"ramgop123 <ramgop123" <ramgop123

Respected Sir,

 

My name is Ramgopal from Chennai.I have just joined the

advaitin yet to get the confirmation of my

inclusion in the list.

When i was browsing the discussions i was looking at the discussion

of "Is acquisition is the road for Happiness" i wanted to forward a

mail received my me from my B'law in the US.Please go thro the same

and pls forward the same to the group members.

 

Thanks and Regards

R.Ramgopal

 

--- As we don't have class this week, just to be in touch with the

teaching, I thought I will write this as it is very interesting and

the subject is also something everyone would like. We have heard in

cassette 14 of Tattva Bodha about the 3 degrees of ananda we could

get from the world – namely Priya, Moda and Pramoda. At this point, I

thought I will write something I have heard in Taitiriya Upanishad on

how it analyses Ananda. These are the teachings of the Veda and not

my own. Ananda can be translated in English as joy or happiness. We

may think what is there to be analyzed in that. But the analysis in

Taitiriya Upanishad is in the form of finding out the source of

ananda – where is it coming from.

One thing to have in mind, which is a very important axiom in Vedanta

is"whichever is a nature of a vastu (thing), then that thing should

have that nature (or property) all the time". For eg. if the nature

of fire is heat, then whenever there is fire, there will be heat. We

can say fire has heat as its very own nature. There is no time we can

say that there is fire but there is no heat.

Lets have this in mind and continue the discussion.

Lets take an example of buying a car. Lets say I have been wanting to

buy a particular car and have been watching the prices, etc. and just

can't wait to buy that car. One fine day I buy it and start to enjoy

that. Now, lets analyze in the Upanishad's method where from this joy

is coming. If it is coming from the car itself, two things should be

true. First, the car should be the source of joy for me all the time

and secondly, it should be the cause of joy for everyone (meaning

anyone having the car should be happy). But, what I find is,

when the car gets older or when I find my insurance goes higher or

whatever be the reason, it ceases to give me the joy that it gave me

before. If we go further, we can say, it becomes a source of sorrow

sometime down the road and I want to get rid of it. So, it is not a

source of joy all the time, which means that there is no Ananda in

the car that seemed to have it. Lets see if it gives

Ananda to all. Again, we can see that it was not a source of ananda

for the dealer or the car-salesman who sold it. Not only that,

actually getting rid of it is what gives him ananda. So, considering

both these instances, we can easily see that the car cannot be the

source of joy. There were 2 entities involved when I had the car with

me the first time. One was the car and the other one was

my mind which had wanted the car. Now lets see if the second entity,

the mind, if that is the source of ananda. Again, if it is the source

of joy, it should be happy by itself but I see that it was happy

only after the car had come. So, it cannot have joy on its own. So,

where is this ananda or joy coming from, is the question put forward

by the Upanishad. Then it goes on to say that it is coming

from you, the Atma who is different from the mind and the body. The

mind enjoys a temporary status in which it doesn't need anything.

There is no desire at that time for the mind and then the nature of

Me the Atma gets reflected and it looks as though the joy has come

from outside. Then, after sometime the mind gets

occupied by some other desire and then works on it and it looks as

though it lost the joy that it had sometime before. This is why we

think that we got joy from some thing and then after sometime even

though that thing is still with us, we seem to not have that same

joy. This is the same for any blessed object in the world. So, there

is a third entity which is a witness of all these and that

is the source of joy. This is like, when I see an object, I am there

the seer and then the object is there, but I lose sight of the light

that makes it happen and so there is a third entity which is

conveniently missed by me. Why do I say I missed it? Because, I don't

count the light when I say how many objects are there, I just count

me and the object I saw. The Atma, the I, is very similarly

missed. The Upanishad points it out and says that You, the Atma is

the only source of joy.

This Atma is the subject of the Tattva Bodha we are currently

studying. We have seen till now what I am not. The coming classes

will be telling who I am. When I say I, the Upanishad does not mean

the `I' as we know. It is the `I' pointed out by Vedanta which is the

only source of ananda. There is more logic to prove that

this I is the only source of Ananda, but we will discuss that some

other time.

And when I say `I', there might be a question in our minds, whose `I'

is that?.

Actually, if we are able to grasp the `I' that the Upanishads point

out, we will

come to know that there is only one `I' and there is no second `I'.

This is what

is meant when the Veda points out saying "Ekameva advitiyam",

meaning "the only

and the non-dual". Till now, in Tattva Bodha we have seen what this

Atma is not.

The coming classes in Tattva Bodha will be addressing this `I', the

Atma, what it is and reveal its nature.

 

Hari Om.