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Ānanda (Sanskrit:आनन्द) literally means bliss or happiness. In the Hindu Vedas, Upanishads and Bagavad gita, happiness is supposed to be one of the four moral ends towards which human beings direct all their efforts, consciously or unconsciously. Throughout history, various authors and philosophers have tried to define the actual meaning.
Swami Vivekananda has claimed that the reason different meanings of ananda and different ways of achieving it are present in Hindu philosophy is because humans differ from each other, and each choose the most appropriate path to ananda for him or herself.
Different meanings of happiness in Hindu philosophy
Sri Aurobindo
According to Sri Aurobindo, happiness is the natural state of humanity. However, mankind develops dualities of pain and pleasure. Aurobindo goes on to say that the concepts of pain and suffering are due to habits developed over time by the mind, which treats success, honour and victory as pleaseant things and defeat, failure, misfortune as unpleaeant things.
Advaita vedanta
According to the Vedanta school of Hindu philosophy, ananda is that state of sublime delight when the jiva becomes free from all sins, all doubts, all desires, all actions, all pains, all sufferings and also all physical and mental ordinary pleasures. Having become established in Brahman it becomes jivanmukta (a being free from the cycle of rebirth). The Upanishads repeatedly use the word Ānanda to denote Brahman, the innermost Self, the Blissful One, who unlike the individual Self has no real attachments.
Dvaita vedanta
Based on a reading of the Bhagavad Gita, Dvaita vedanta interprets ananda as happiness derived via good thoughts and good deeds that depend on the state and on the control of the mind. Through evenness of temper and mind, the state of supreme bliss is reached in all aspects of one’s life.
Vishishtadvaita vedanta
According to the Vishishtadvaita vedanta school which was proposed by Ramanujacharya, true happiness can be only through divine grace, which can be only achieved by total surrender of ones ego to the Divine.
Sri Ramana maharshi
According to Ramana Maharshi, happiness is within and can be known only through discovering one's true self. He proposes that ananda can be attained by inner enquiry, using the thought "Who am I?"
Ways of achieving Ananda (Happiness)
Within the varoius schools of Hindu thought, there are different paths and ways of achieving Happiness. The main four paths are Bhakti yoga, Jnana yoga, Karma Yoga and Raja Yoga.
Happiness in Advaita vedanta
The plight of being
The plight of being is in its own being, for the very fact of being by itself necessitates actions that give pleasure and pain. Pleasure and pain are results of Karmas. The Bhagvad Gita, by using five verbs viz. करोषि Karoshi (ordinary activities carried on for earning a livelihood, social duties etc;), अश्नासि Ashnaasi (activities intended to keep the body and soul together by intake of food etc;), जुहोषि Juhoshi (activities connected with worship, meditation etc;), ददासि Dadaasi (activities connected with charity etc;) and तपस्यसि Tapasyasi (activities which bring about self-restraint, all forms of austere penance etc;), enumerates those actions with which the ordinary man identifies himself with and craves for their fruits. Craving, which is longing difficult to curb, is the origin of suffering. Pleasure too is attended by pain. Craving, pleasure and pain, which are products of ignorance, are associated with the Jiva, the empirical self, whose origin is the origin of the limiting adjuncts of the mind-body complex. Actions that depend entirely on the performer bring about Jiva’s connection with the body, and which particular connection brings in its wake suffering, pain and grief for the Jiva. There is the right to work but never to the fruit thereof; suffering, pain and grief afflict so long as actions are made to bear fruit.
Moreover, the empirical self, the finite individual, cannot imagine the Infinite without limiting it; the finite being can only form limited and objective conceptions of the Infinite, which forms and concepts rest ultimately in the Infinite, the Absolute.
The role of the mind
By itself the mind is an unconscious organ or substance that gets readied by various impressions and will, to assist the Jiva. According to the Chandogya Upanishad the subtlest part of food when eaten becomes the mind; the Katha Upanishad compares mind to the bridle of the chariot (body) to which are yoked the (evil) senses; the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad suggests that since mind is what it is desirable to know, therefore, all manifestations of the mind should be known, and the Aitareya Upanishad explains that all mental functions are the processes of Thought, that of intellection. But, the Jiva, who is by its true nature Consciousness itself, due to delusion continues to engage in vain pursuits. In its anxiety and ignorance the Jiva equates pleasure, satisfaction and comfort with happiness, and wanders about without knowing what happiness truly means; the kind of happiness that the Jiva generally seeks to enjoy is limited, momentary and perishable in nature.
The cause of empirical life is nescience i.e. lodgement in the Prakrti and clinging to its constituents or desires, which is to be shunned, what dispels nescience is knowledge and dispassion with renunciation. The instruction is to keep the mind pure through gain of knowledge. The light which illuminates the mind is the light that confers knowledge, and the Paramatman, the Supreme Self, alone is the only source of bliss for the Jivatman who through its own purified ten means of knowledge seeks Him.
The two categories of happiness
There are two categories of happiness – Great Happiness and Little Happiness. Real happiness is the happiness that is enjoyed in the vision of the Infinite. It is the everlasting imperishable Great Happiness; all other kinds which constitute Little Happiness are momentary and perishable. The former consists in the mystical realisation of the triune unity, by becoming identified with the Infinite; the latter consists in finite things that do not give real happiness. The presence of the Infinite is felt everywhere, without and within, but the sense-objects that please and satisfy the senses alone are limited and impermanent. Happiness is plenum, happiness is completeness, happiness is totality, happiness is in the Absolute. R.D.Ranade explains that Great Happiness consists in seeing, hearing and meditating on the Atman, and Little Happiness, upon other things besides the Atman, the former is experienced when the Infinite is seen everywhere as identical with everything that exists when the being residing within us as the I is realized everywhere identical with every thing, the latter is limited to the I-consciousness alone; he who thus realises the triune unity of the Infinite, the I, and the Atman, and experiences the truth of the Brahmvakya - So Aham Atma, is alone entitled to enjoy the highest happiness, Ananda. The unique awareness of Sameness, which is actually the awareness of Oneness, is the knowledge of Reality, which is Bliss, and the sole source of bliss.
After renouncing the fruits of action and thus becoming freed from the bonds of Karmas which are in the shape of good and bad consequences one should duly practice concentration on Aum first through the means of its letters, then meditate on Aum without regard to its letters, and finally on the realizaion with this latter form of meditation on Aum the idea of non-entity is attained as entity; non-entity is the world of name and form i.e. of Avidya and its effects, and entity is Brahman alone free from all adjuncts and limitations.
The nature of ananda
Without doubt, enjoyments born of objective contacts cause pain only. One who is strong enough to resist the urge of lust and wrath is always happy who becomes Brahman and finds peace in Brahman. Pure and noble thoughts, and the resultant dedicated will, impel the Jiva to set for itself, desirable and definable higher and greater goals, and enable its actions and efforts to stay cohesively sincere and properly directed. Real happiness or Ānanda is the most refined extract obtained from such an effort of the mind. A deluded mind considers real happiness to be illusory and unattainable. But, all that there is, together with the moving and the non-moving, is a manifestation of the mind, for when the mind ceases to think duality is not at all perceived. Those who do not perceive duality experience spiritual bliss.
Paramahamsa Upanishad states that for the renouncer all desires of the mind cease to exist, he is not agitated by grief and has no longing for happiness; renunciation of attachment to sense-objects comes and he is everywhere unattached in good or evil, he neither hates nor is elated. The outgoing tendency of all the sense-organs subsides in him who rests in the Ātman alone, who he reaches the end of his desires.
The experience of spiritual bliss is the enjoyment of eternal happiness i.e. of Ānanda. The fatherly figures, the learned ones, who keep the fire alight at their homes and those who do not, owing to their knowledge of the highest Truth enjoy eternal happiness. In the state of sublime delight experienced on being face to face with Reality and having become established in Brahman one becomes free from all physical and mental bonds and becomes Jivanmukta, having attained eternal tranquillity his senses along with the mind and intellect become motionless and he having realised the Atman finds eternal happiness everywhere.
References
- Pathways to Joy: The Master Vivekananda on the Four Yoga Paths to God 2006 , Pg 5- 10 Swami Vivekananda
- Pathways to Joy: The Master Vivekananda on the Four Yoga Paths to God 2006 , Swami Vivekananda
- The Life divine 2005, p. 98-108
- Vedanta-sara of Sadananda. Translated and commented by Swami Nikhalananda. Published by Advaita Ashrama, Kolkata. Verse VI.217 p.117 http://www.estudantedavedanta.net/Vedantasara-Nikhilananda.pdf
- Dvaita Vedānta 1975, T. P. Ramachandran
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- Talks With Ramana Maharshi: On Realizing Abiding Peace and Happiness 2000, Ramana Maharshi
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- Bhagvad Gita IX.27 http://www.bhagavad-gita.org/index-english.html
- Upadesasahasri of Adi Shankara Translated and commented by Swami Jagadananda Published by Sri Ramakrishna Math, Chennai. Verse II.1.3 p.74 http://mediafire.com/view/?d5lhyetwgpwgzi8
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- Rig Veda I.4.3 http://www.sanskritweb.net/rigveda/
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- Rig Veda I.163.4 http://www.sanskritweb.net/rigveda/
- Amritabindu Upanishad. Verses 7&8 http://sambaviyoga.blogspot.in/2009/03/amrita-bindu-upanishad.html
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- Brihadaranyaka Upanishad II.4.2-5 http://www.astrojyoti.com/pdfs/DevanagariFiles/BrihadaranyakaUpanishat.pdf
- Rig Veda X.15.14 http://www.sanskritweb.net/rigveda/
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- Shvetashvatara Upanishad IV.11 http://www.astrojyoti.com/pdfs/DevanagariFiles/ShwetashwataraUpanishat.pdf
- Katha Upanishad II.6.10-11]] http://www.astrojyoti.com/pdfs/DevanagariFiles/KathaUpanishat.pdf
- Shvetashvatara Upanishad IV.12 http://www.astrojyoti.com/pdfs/DevanagariFiles/ShwetashwataraUpanishat.pdf
Category:Hinduism Category:Hindu philosophy Category:Vedanta