Question and answer 5

Disciple: Happiness comes only from contact with objects, so in what sense am I bliss?

Guru: For a man ignorant of the Self, that is of himself, the Self's bliss is hidden, because his intellect is shaken by desire for objects. When the object he wanted is gained, the intellect grows still for an instant and faces inward, and that very bliss, the Self's own, is mirrored there and shines; so the illusion arises that the bliss came from the object. But there is no bliss in the object. When desire turns to some other thing, this bliss goes; like the joy a father feels when his son returns from a far country, it does not last even while its supposed cause remains; and in samādhi and deep sleep bliss shines with no object at all. Bliss is the Self alone. It is because every jīva tastes the Self's bliss and no other that the Veda declares all beings to be bliss by nature.

Disciple: Since bliss arises from contact with objects alone, how is it to say 'I am bliss'?

Guru: To the one not knowing the Self (himself), in an intellect stirred by desire for objects, the Self's bliss does not shine; as soon as the desired object is gained, in the intellect, still for a moment and turned inward, that bliss of the Self itself, reflected, shines, and so the illusion arises that bliss arose in the object. But because this bliss goes when desire for another object arises, because, as in a son returned from a distant land, that bliss does not stay for as long as its causing object stays, and because in samādhi and deep sleep bliss shines without any object, there is no bliss in the object. The Self alone is bliss. On the ground of the sense that it is the Self's bliss alone that all jīvas experience, the Veda proclaims all jīvas to be bliss by nature.