The Essence of the Aitareya and Taittiriya Upanishads - 5.11 - Swami Krishnananda.

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Monday,  15  Jan 2024. 07:00.

Chapter 5: Ananda Mimamsa-11.

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This is what the Upanishad presents before us as the great legacy of our culture, to contemplate which we have to find adequate time every day. If we cannot find time to meditate on this truth, what else is the objective of life? So we have to think deeply on this matter and put forth the greatest effort possible for cogitating along these lines, and realise the aim of our life within our own Self as the emblem of universality which God is.

The Taittiriya Upanishad tells something more about this theme of happiness called Ananda Mimamsa—an investigation into the character of happiness. We noted earlier in our analysis that at the time of our coming in contact with a desired object, there is a temporary forgetfulness of both the subjective and the objective sides of experience and there flashes forth, for the fraction of a moment, as it were, a sense of perfection, a feeling of completeness which is the indication of the descent of the Absolute into our consciousness. This is the reason for our being happy when we come in contact with, possess or enjoy an object of our desire.

Now this analysis may also lead to a misconstruction or a misapprehension—namely, that qualitatively at least, though not quantitatively, this little fractional experience of happiness is the same as the bliss of the Absolute. When we have an immense ecstatic experience of happiness at the time of enjoyment of a desired object, are we qualitatively—though not quantitatively, of course—having the same happiness as the one that is the essence of the Absolute?

The Upanishad refutes this notion. Even qualitatively it is not the same, notwithstanding the fact that it is the Absolute that is revealing itself in the form of that happiness. Quantitatively, of course, it is far smaller because it is manifest through a little aperture of our own little mind. So it is like a drop in the terrible ocean of existence. Thus, from the point of view of quantity, it is nothing. Even from the point of view of quality is it nothing, says the Upanishad, so that we need not be under a misconstrued complacency that perhaps there is a little jot of divine experience at the time of sensory contact. It is not so. This is the subject of Ananda Mimamsa in the Taittiriya Upanishad.

We have to understand this new type of analysis very carefully. It is difficult to explain transcendent things in empirical terms. But we have to do that. We have no other alternative. So empirical expressions, comparisons, analogies are resorted to for the purpose of driving home to our minds the nature of the transcendent reality.

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To be continued

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