Sat, Cit and Ananda

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Olesya
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Sat, Cit and Ananda

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One of the most significant things that I feel as an individual is when, I suppose, I become a partner is somebody’s healing. If I could somehow assist someone in a healing process, somehow or another, I feel more complete. Now, philosophical discussions are OK, because they help to increase our awareness, they help to make us think. But ultimately, what is more significant to me is when whatever it is we do, it somehow heals us, makes us more whole, makes us more what we are. Now, it makes sense, in one sense, to speak about healing as very intimately connected with spirituality. You could, in one sense, say, we, who live in this realm, everyone living in this realm require healing. And the process of healing is intimately connected with bringing us from this realm to our natural realm. Now that healing is fueled or propelled or inspired by spiritual energy. I think, any time there is a healing of any kind, it has to have some connection with the spiritual energy. There are even famous doctors, researches, who insist on a concept that all healing is self-healing, even if it’s from the medical point of view. Even from the point of view of the body biologically, to bring about the state of healing it has to balance itself, it has to find its natural way of being, because the natural way is health. So, we can see that also in the spiritual sense. When we accept our natural state, that’s the state of healing and that’s where we find our spiritual energy most.

‘Now what is that energy of healing?’ that’s my question. And how does it inspire us to heal? Now, I’ve done some healing, I mean, not tones, but some, and I have some experience, what it means. And as far as I can understand, it has a lot to do with the way one let’s the healing energy flow through you. Sometimes I am really tired and I am in a state of stress from having to do too much all day, and sometimes in that state I am called upon to do some kind of healing. But it doesn’t work. I can’t do it. And than I am forced to realize that I have to heal myself first. Now, how do I do that? Well, I just sit in meditation or I stand in meditation and, I just let the spiritual energy flow over me, I just try to relax and allow it to come. Sometimes that works and sometimes not, it depends on how bad shape I am in. Sometimes I am in such a bad shape, it doesn’t work and I say, ‘OK, I’ll just go to sleep.’ It’s amazing, what a good night’s sleep can do. Often everything works out in a good nights sleep. But when it does work, the mechanism that makes it work is that simply I accept. I am accepting the spiritual energy; I am accepting it and I am allowing it to flow through. So, the whole point being is this acceptance of this energy and allowing it to flow through you. This energy exists everywhere and one just allows it to go through. And than one feels more like oneself. And one feels more connected; feels this spiritual energy around. And this works. Because once one becomes connected, or when I become connected to such energy, than it’s very easy for me to flow towards another. Because it can flow through me, it can flow to another. What I find very interesting about this phenomenon, is that somehow it’s filled with qualities, which are just natural, I feel very comfortable with them, yet it’s something which is familiar.

Now, in the Sanskrit version we would talk about Sat, and Cit, and Ananda, we would talk about these three qualities of the spirit. Yet, I would find the fact that there are these three qualities immediately to be disharmonious with that feeling I have, when I connect to the spiritual energy. It’s kind of like if you were to have this nice glass table here and that you would break it into three parts to try to examine it. As it is, it’s just great. There is no need to examine it. You know what it is. Now, if you were a caveman coming out of the caves and for the first time in your life you saw a glass table, you might want to smash it and look at it and taste it. So, what I’d like to think is in another way. It’s not that there is something wrong with Sat or something is wrong with Cit or with Ananda. These things are great, nothing is wrong. Let’s talk about this in more detail.

The standard way you would put in a foreign language the term Sat would be ‘eternal’. ‘Eternal’ is OK, but it’s not a very clear word. Of course, some people may think this is going to be a completely strange way to look at it, but bear with me. What is really the point of eternality? We, who live within this world of time, like to define ‘eternal’ as ‘without a beginning, without an end, ever-existent.’ We stand here in time, because that’s very important to us, don’t forget, we live in time, so we are standing here in time and observing. Time is very important for us. We are very aware that we are standing in the present. But we are only aware of it from the point of view that we look into the past and we are looking towards the future. We have a lot of trouble dealing with the ‘right now’. So, we feel comfortable with dealing with eternality by looking into the past and finding that there is no beginning. We feel very comfortable with looking into the future and seeing there is no end. There is no beginning, there is no end. There is no boundary in time. We feel that this is a very wonderful way to define Sat, ‘eternal’. From the spiritual point of view that’s not the proper definition of Sat. That’s taking a beautiful spiritual concept and squashing it into this realm’s mentality. What does Sat mean? Actually, it means ‘ever-present’. That’s it. All these other words are just added on to make us feel good about dealing with the eternity. But in reality, all there is is ever-present. And if it’s ever-present, there is no need to talk about a boundary, because you can’t make a boundary on the present. In fact, even to speak in terms of ‘the Present always exists’, is redundant, is absurd. Because the present can’t ‘not exist’. And you can’t even talk about the Present that was. Because by definition the Present is. When we talk about the spirit, we speak in terms of ‘I am’. How can you define us as anything else than we are? Being. That spirit. It’s not even a verb, in one sense. It’s a state. It doesn’t employ action, it doesn’t employ movement, it’s a state of being. And in this state of being, I am. And all there is is ever present. It is. These are very interesting ways of looking at standard terminology.
And now we move to the next thing, Cit. Cit refers to knowledge. This idea of ‘ceita’,‘to know’. Knowledge, is it really something you gain or is it something you have? Well, it depends. Leaning how to use a video camera, this is something you learn. But let’s go back to Sat. Can you learn Sat? Can you learn that ‘ever-present is’? Can you learn ‘I AM’? Can you actually learn the Supreme? Sure, you can talk about these things. You can have philosophical discussions. You can break up existence into terms like Sat and Cit and Ananda and you can divide this into ‘these three this’ and ‘those three this’. You can do this and I am not saying there is anything wrong in it. But if one thinks this is the spirit, this is spirituality, it’s an incomplete understanding. After all, that, which is, is not something you learn, it’s something that you know. And the way you will recover your knowing is to stop thinking about it as something else. I know this is also very esoteric, it’s almost as if I am putting into words things which do not deserve to be put into words, do not fit into words. But I don’t worry about it, because I know you know. Because I know you are. And I know it is. And you know it, too. I can’t teach it, it would be ridiculous for me to say, ‘I am teaching you to be. I am teaching you to know.’ Just think about how you learn something. What is that mechanism which causes you to learn? We are very concerned about things and learning, and seeing and perceiving, and all of this, we categorize, analyze, memorize. We calculate. We organize. But what is it that does that? That is something which already knows. And it’s adapting to the environment. That is that consciousness. But in the spiritual sense, we have that knowledge; we know we are; that knowledge is part of all that is. Not part, that’s the wrong word. We are complete. You know, even in that Om Purnam-adah, purnam-idam ‘the Supreme is complete, we are complete, all are complete.’ I am because all there is - is that ever-present. And I exist, by definition, as an axiomatic truth, because I exist, I am.
In Christianity it was said, ‘I think, therefore, I am.’ I think that a lousy translation of the original meaning. And others say, ‘I am that I am.’ Now if you think about this ‘I am that I am,’ in this idea ‘I exist, I know it, therefore I am. There can be nothing else.’ Now I know people are looking at me like ‘what the point of that?’ But if you just drop away that ‘that’s too simple,’ you’ll catch on that that’s the secret. I remember when I first started going to Eastern Europe, I think it was in 1976, and I’m giving a lecture in Hungary and people were getting really annoyed with me. They said, ‘It’s too simple, it can’t be true. Spiritual things are very complicated. So, we can’t believe what you are talking about, it’s too simple.’ And I had a good giggle about that. I mean, it’s really funny, we insist on making things complex. In reality you can boil it all simply down to ‘I am’. Immediately the complex mind would object, ‘Right now I don’t know, I am, therefore I have to do a million things and talk a lot and do all kinds of complex this and that.’ And than I ask, ‘Do you know?’ - And you ask, ‘Know what?’- I say, ‘Anything? Do you know anything? Do you know something?’, ‘Yeah’, ‘So, you know’, ‘Yeah’, But I have to know some thing. Just knowing is not enough.
I ask ‘Are you?’, And you say, ‘Am I what?’,I say, ‘Are you anything?’, And you say, ‘Yeah’, And I say, ‘Therefore, you are!’

We are causing the destruction of our spirituality systematically. Because all you have to do is simply BE and KNOW. There is no need to make the step of ‘being something’, there is no need to make the step of ‘knowing something’. And why aren’t you in Ananda? ‘Ananda’ is a very badly translated word into English. A word that’s used is ‘bliss’. But no one has a clue what ‘bliss’ means, because no one knows what bliss is. We all have some idea what we would call ‘bliss’. But we don’t really know if that, what we call ‘bliss’, is actually connected to that, which is Ananda. And after all, if I ask you, ‘You feel?’ And than you say, ‘Of course, I feel. What do you want to talk about?’ And again we have the same problem, because we have to do something to become happy. ‘If I can just do this, I’ll be happy.’ But bliss is a tricky thing, we want it to be more than happiness. It’s kind of like that eternity business, of backwards and forward. So, we always define ‘bliss’ as something which is disconnected with pain and suffering of material existence. Happiness is not sufficient, because that’s just the opposite of ‘stress’. Now, I ask you why don’t we use the same mentality as when we talked about the ‘no beginning, no end’, these things are just opposites, too. But we are expecting more. That’s interesting. We expect more. We are always expecting, or desiring, or wishing for that beyond happiness, that experience beyond all experiences. That reverie in spirit. We are expecting this. Everyone, who talks about this ‘bliss’ jazz, has this expectation. And we all agree it has nothing to do with this stuff, in this realm. We all agree it’s beyond happiness. How can we be so sure about that? I never have ever heard an argument about bliss. I’ve heard plenty of arguments about knowledge, but when we talk about bliss, nobody argues. They may argue about what school of philosophical thought they may find themselves in, but they don’t argue about bliss itself. You will find funny people say, ‘My bliss is better than your bliss. My bliss is the best bliss.’ But of course, everybody thinks their bliss is the best bliss, so it’s meaningless. Isn’t in interesting, this bliss business? It wasn’t that difficult for us to deal with ‘Sat’, we caught that pretty quickly, in this discussion. We even understood ‘Cit’ because we know. But Ananda! that’s the tricky one.
So, I have a theory. This business of ‘bliss’ is why we are in this realm. This is kind of like not so deep, it’s kind of like, in one sense, obvious, yet people define that search in different ways, according to their philosophical school. Some even create this idea that we are here, because we wanted to have the same bliss as God, so we are envious, that’s why we are here. Others have the idea that there was this tree with apples on it and somebody ate the apple and they were all finished after that. Always there is this idea that somebody did something wrong and you are paying for it, or you did something wrong and you are paying for it. There is this idea that something wrong happened. Now, think about this, that’s interesting. All was right, and than it wasn’t. That is a fascinating concept. All is right and than it isn’t. Now, because we are humans, we have to deal with this. Because we are dealing with this ‘bliss’ business, we are trying to understand it, we are trying to chew it, to digest it. So, the best way for us to deal with it, is to use our very human understanding of ‘the only reason we can be here is because we did something wrong. It’s our fault. We are guilty. Condemned.’ This is very human. Very, very, very human, because if you understand ‘Sat’, you understand ‘Cit’, this idea of our being guilty and condemned makes very little sense. Therefore, nobody speaks about the fault with ‘Sat’ or the fault with ‘Cit’, the fault must be with the ‘Ananda’. Therefore, it’s obvious that enjoyment is bad. We are here because we did something wrong. And the only thing we could have done wrong is to want to enjoy. And therefore, bliss must be something other than enjoyment. Cause otherwise you couldn’t have done something wrong to leave the right. Does that mean you don’t enjoy bliss? Wow. I guess you don’t suffer it, either, so that’s not so bad. But what is this ‘bliss’ jazz, anyway? It is so interesting.
How about this? Bliss IS. It’s a state of being. Just as knowledge is, just as being is, existence is. It’s not a problem, this bliss, just as Cit is not a problem, just as Sat is not a problem. It’s just us as a complete spirit. And when I am, I am all of that. Because that’s what I am. And all this stuff that comes around it, all this philosophical stuff is all part of a human being’s attempt to understand, why I am not. Can you imagine the biggest problem in all of the existence is how it all from right becomes not right? Therefore, the only reason is because we become envious. Now, if it’s all right, what is there to be envious of? Has anyone been ever able to answer that? You only become envious when you don’t have something, you are lacking. When you are lacking, you want. When you want, all these qualities come. If it’s all right, you don’t want.

Here we start getting into all the other stuff. Desire. This want. Even those who wrote Vedic literatures about Radha and Krishna. Look at Krishna. Nobody wants more than him. Filled with desires. This gopi, that gopi, the other gopi. 16108 wives. Palaces everywhere. Destroying all kinds of demons. Desires. They may say, ‘You are made in the image of God. But these desires are bad. Only God can have these desires. You can not have desires.’ Now let’s see, it becomes complex here.
I don’t want to start dismantling the idea of the spiritual realm, of the interactions and so on, that’s not my purpose. My purpose is to try to understand, what is it that’s keeping us from having it all right. If I am knowing, I am full of all knowing, it doesn’t mean that I can’t desire to experience with that knowing more. I have plenty of time to do it. Cause it’s ever existent. So, I can desire more knowing, desire more experience. To seek out. To find out. To look around. I am curious. I want to grow more, expand more. That’s also my nature. Now, cats are also very curious. They stick their nose everywhere, they get themselves stuck everywhere. There is nothing wrong with the curiosity of the cat. But sometimes they get struck in places where it didn’t think it can get stuck. Is it the fault of the cat? Is that the fault of the curiosity? Is something wrong because of this? I don’t think so. It’s the nature of the cat to be curious. And it’s the nature of curiosity to make us want to find out. Look at babies, small children. ‘What’s that? What’s this? Oh, look at this! Oh, look at that! Oh! What does that taste like?’ Unlimited curiosity. But mother says, ‘No, no, no. Don’t be curious about that, it’s not good for you.’ So, the curiosity gets restricted into socially accepted curiosity. But what would happen to a small child if the curiosity wasn’t limited? In this natural state of pure curiosity what would happen? All kinds of disaster, we all know that. That’s why we are running around, putting everything up, so that curious kids can’t pull it down and smash it. Let’s think of our being here more of an act of curiosity, more of an act of exploration, adventure, rather than condemnation and punishment. Just because at the end we find ourselves in this state of punishment, doesn’t mean this is a punishment, it means we just got stuck.
Let’s look at this from another point of view. Here we are, just moving around and exploring all these dimensions and than we get stuck. And others, who’ve already been here before, they already got stuck before, they say, ‘Hohoho, you are stuck. This is the place of stuck. You’d better stop being so curious.’- ‘What do you mean it’s a place of stuck? I thought this is the place of adventure?’- ‘Well, you got it wrong. Horrible place. Listen to me, kid. If you want to make it here, you’d better follow the rules. This place has got lots of rules. And you’ve got to follow them really carefully; otherwise you are going to have a mess in your life.’ And than all of the sudden, we now accept it, ‘Yes, it’s a bad place, it’s full of danger. Look out. Watch out.’ And than someone comes up and says, ‘Hey, how about being curious?’ And you say, ‘Hohoho. I did that already, you can forget about it’, ‘Hey, let’s go explore!’- ‘No, thanks. Right here is fine by me.’
How that relates to religiosity, I am not sure exactly, but I don’t even care. The way I am seeing it, at least, right now, is that you can either see it this way, or that way, or the other way, it’s just what you wish to see, again, the ‘belief’ business. And I would rather see our being here as ‘we are explorers’. And I don’t see it useful to feel stuck. Somebody may say ‘What if you are wrong?’- I don’t care. Even if I am wrong, which nobody could ever say, anyway, it’s much better to think this way than to think we are stuck and it has to be this way and has to be without exploration and adventure. It works better. Those who think about themselves as bad and not very good and sinful, fallen and so on, have a very hard time connecting with Radha and Krishna. How can you connect to Radha and Krishna when you are so bad? Let’s say you want to offer food to Radha and Krishna, and it is too much salt and it’s old and rotten, are you going to do that? You would feel embarrassed to bring it anywhere near the altar. So, you are this plate which is too salty and too bitter and old and rotten. So, how can you come up to the altar? How can you do that? It doesn’t seem to me to be useful.
Someone would say, ‘If you are in such a state, better avoid trying to make that contact, be humble.’ But what about the healing? Where does the healing come from? The whole concept of healing is that the healing energy is more powerful than the diseased energy. The healing energy from the God just flows through the disease and washes it away. So, why can’t I come in front of Radha and Krishna and say, ‘Here I am, the real garbage heap.’ And they wash it away. I don’t think the way I am thinking about it is wrong. This whole idea, this entire construction of why I am here, doesn’t work for me. I guess that kind of goes with learning not to condemn others. I think that in reality, it really is to a large extent what we make it. And if that was not so, adventure would be impossible. Because what we’d really be in that sense, would be everything just happens to you. You just bash against this wall, against that wall. Adventure has this mood of marching into the great unknown and dealing with it. Dealing with it at every moment. In this ever-present - dealing with it. Using knowledge that I am, knowing that I am, dealing with it.

With the spirit of an adventurer, spirit of an explorer, seeking after that truth that I am.
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