Sat-cit-ananda

 

 

One outcome of Shankara’s monumental blunder was the attribution of sat-cit-ananda (roughly meaning being/truth, knowledge/consiousness and bliss (earlier ananta, suggesting limitlessness) to (the nirguna) Brahman/Atman/Prajapati or even the identity of sat-cit-ananda with the (nirguna = unqualified) former. That was a serious error of observation.

 

Had Shankara taken the unqualified tattvamasi seriously, meaning as actually stated in the Upanishad, his followers, right up to the youthful (meaning immature) Vivekananda, would have realised that sat-cit-ananda happens as saguna Brahman (= Atman/Prajapati, and which means as all life forms which ‘are Brahman’) response if and when the Brahman/Atman/Prajapati dharma is completed within any saguna state (i.e. as mundane, meaning delimited niche attainment).

 

In other words, if and when a (localised) form (and of which there are n, and ‘all of which are Brahman because tattvamasi) completes (and so perfects) its dharma, and thereby the universal dharma of which it and/or its local dharma happens as fractal elaboration, it experiences ananda (i.e. bliss, joy, happiness and so on) + sat + cit. If and when a form fails to complete its dharma, and thereby the universal dharma, leaving both incomplete, it experiences dukkha (pain, unhappiness and so on) + sat + cit.

 

In this regard see my book: ‘How to make and fake happiness’

 

 

Determining the goal of sramanic (hence adolescent) endeavour to be sat-cit-ananda (= brahman/atman/prajapti) was fundamentally flawed (in much the same way as deciding that orgasm is the aim of sex or that the purpose of life is happiness). The goal of all life forms is the completion/perfection of their (local or personal) dharma/law (as fractal elaboration of the universal dharma/law of creation). Sat-cit-ananda happens as side-effect of completion/perfection of any and every (local or personal) dharma whereby the content of the dharma is irrelevant (i.e. any and every completed dharma will do the trick) and the quality of completion/perfection is relative to the initial and end states of the form attempting to complete its dharma/law/rules set.

 

The neti-neti fallacy