Sat Chit Ananda, a description of fully established enlightenment Self Realization. Literally, it means Absolute Consciousness Bliss, or in proper English, Absolute Bliss Consciousness. This is the experience even in established first awakening.
We are established in the absolute, in Silence, the unchanging. We are aware we are consciousness, we are Being. (note that Being or existence arises as a result of awareness, so is an aspect of awareness, not silence) And we are bliss itself. The movement, either in the deeper flow or the surface vibration, is bliss. Is Love.
Permanent awareness of happiness and peace, undisturbed by the vagaries of life.
As the experience deepens, refined values come into awareness then join the perception as bliss. Soon it becomes apparent that all of it is “within”, the identity that divided inside and outside is lost and all becomes one. We awaken from all illusion and see the fullness of Truth. (I’ve spoken about theses stages in much more detail in other posts like this)
Sat Chit Ananda is then seen as Silence, containing only altertness and liveliness. All is Sat Chit Ananda on a much deeper level.
This can also reveal a deeper aspect of the well known quote from the Upanishads. I am That, Thou art That, all This is That. The word translated as “That” is Brahman. Absolute. Silence. Sat. Thus, it is saying I am Absolute, Thou art Silence, all This is That. Or another more loose translation, I am Absolute, Thou art Bliss, All this is Consciousness.
Of course, any given persons experience of this process is unique and may fall out of order. I’ve seen people not achieve permanent bliss consciousness until after the second waking, for example. But it is where we are going. As several teachers have said, it is our natural state of being. This is why we are unsatisfied without it, why we seek this illusive unknown, and what the world is now waking up to.
It’s like we’re waking up from a bad dream and discovering we’ve been in heaven all along.
Davidya
Last Updated on March 17, 2020 by Davidya
Pingback: The Journey, part 1 « In 2 Deep
Pingback: States of Consciousness « In 2 Deep
Pingback: After Unity « In 2 Deep
Pingback: Life is Bliss « In 2 Deep
Pingback: Embodiment « In 2 Deep
Pingback: The Bodies and Energies (Part 2/5) « In 2 Deep
Pingback: Within Bliss « In 2 Deep
It’s worth mentioning another aspect of this. Sat Chit Ananda can arise, as I mentioned, with first awakening.
Katie Davis reminds that this can be “one of the most magnificent and extraordinary traps, since being-consciousness-bliss is at the forefront in all its splendor.”
The terminology she uses differently than I but the message is clear – this is not the goal.
Pingback: Opening and Integration « In 2 Deep
Pingback: Selfless, Soulless Being « In 2 Deep
Pingback: LLL Retreat 5 « In 2 Deep
Pingback: The Evolution of Bliss « In 2 Deep
Pingback: Half Awake « In 2 Deep
Pingback: Understanding God Realization « In 2 Deep
Pingback: Waking Down « In 2 Deep
Pingback: States of Consciousness redux « In 2 Deep
Pingback: Gradations of Awakening | In 2 Deep
yes
Pingback: Why Bliss? - Davidya.ca
Pingback: Stages of Development in Consciousness - Davidya.ca
Pingback: The Dalai Lama on the Meaning of Life - Davidya.ca
Hi David,
I just wanted to point out that you are not really clear anywhere on the site that everything here is according to TM/Maharishi. This is not a bad thing, in fact I was initiated into TM (and by coincidence, interviewed on local Bay Area TV about it) and I’m quite fond of the Maharishi and his insights.
“Satchitananda” is a good example of something that ends up meaning something different in different traditions. In many traditions, it is not a description of a subjective experience, but rather a cosmological description of the Absolute – God in theistic traditions, and Brahman in monistic ones. In this sense, Sat = Existence, Chit = Consciousness and Ananda = Bliss …. and … all three are aspects of the same thing. So, what this says is that “Consciousness” and “Bliss” are aspects of Existence.
Kashmir Shaivism takes this one step further and posits that the World is projected on SatChitAnanda , the same way a movie is projected on a screen.
Hi Ken
Actually it’s not. My early spiritual path was with TM and Maharishi’s teachings. That has had a strong influence on my outlook but I’ve deviated from that in significant places. I get email from TMers objecting to the way I present higher stages or separate Brahman from Unity, for example. But I’m going with the evidence rather than a single teaching.
I’ll disagree a little on SatChitAnanda. This phrase is used in 2 ways in the texts. One way is as a description of reality in a certain stage of development. And the other way is a description of the experience of a certain stage of development. However, these are effectively the same thing from slightly different perspectives.
Some texts and the traditions who favour them emphasize one or the other perspective but it’s a minor difference. Each stage brings its own reality and description thereof so the perspective of reality is not different from the stage of development.
Elsewhere on this site, I point out that existence is an effect of consciousness, not the other way around. Unless consciousness is aware of itself, there is no sense of existence. This is further corroborated in the Brahman shift when we transcend existence.
Kashmir Shaivism is not unique in that approach. I describe the projection in c here:
https://davidya.ca/2014/08/09/awareness-becomes-self-aware/
To me, it’s more useful to explore the nature of reality as seen through the lens of different stages of development. This gives the biggest picture. It also allows you to take the described philosophies, experiences, and perspectives and understand what stage they’re speaking to. It puts it all into relative context rather than a debate about which is “true”.
Okay, I understand the qualification that you are not an official representative of TM, nor do you agree with them on every point.
However, the point I am trying to make is that all of your terminology, and the metaphysics, and the use of words (like satchitananda) in the context of sadhana, rather than metaphysics/philosophy, and also, having a cosmology that is created for the purpose of a specific path, rather for the purpose of metaphysics/philosophy, is all part of TM. It is not “bad”, but it is a specific thing.
For example, as an IC design software engineer, I once went to a major client who was a giant multinational corporation. The engineers there started talking about what they were doing and what they needed from our software…. and I was at sea. It took quite a while, but finally I figured out that it wasn’t that I was missing some huge swatch of knowledge, but rather that they were all using the word “generic” as a noun, rather than its English definition as an adjective. As soon as I figured that out, everything else made sense. The corporation was so huge that they could have entirely separate terms within the corporation.
So, in a similar way, there is a “TM-verse” with its own cosmology and terminology. (Just as there is a “Hare-Krishna-verse” with their own cosmology and terminology)
But your front page has no reference to this. So, the casual web surfer might think that you are using the neutral (Oxford University Sanskrit) meaning of the terms, and that your experience precedes your cosmology rather than the other way around.
Thus some sort of indication might be appropriate, that’s all.
Hi Ken
Apparently, my style of writing is misleading you. I only occasionally describe “personal experience” because I don’t experience it as personal.
The cosmology I use is a description of direct experience. Much of what I write is driven by that. I adopt terminology that supports communicating that. Some of that is TM-ish and some very much not. Some I’ve never seen described anywhere.
I do review my background on the About tab, where such things are usually stated. And I commonly link to articles that further define some of the terms being used.