Chapter-13: An Introduction

Chapter-13: The Bliss Absolute 

Introduction 

The concluding verse of the previous section opens a vein of poetry in Janaka and the Realized in life, the royal saint expounds, in this section, the Absolute Bliss as the very Nature of the Supreme Reality. It was already explained by the king that one who totally gives up all actions of his body, mind and speech alone can reach to abide in his own Real Nature. 

In the Pure Infinite Consciousness there is neither action nor inaction, neither joy nor sorrow, neither good nor bad. These are all values at the body, mind and intellect levels. The Consciousness, the Self is the illuminator of all these and, therefore, is of a different category and order. 

These seven pregnant verses have succeeded in giving us an exhaustive estimate of the rewards lived by one who is Realized in life, while the Upaniṣads have perceptibly failed to communicate to the students the magnitude of the Bliss and glory experienced by a ‘Jīvanmukta’. Inner renunciation of all our identifications with the perceptions, emotions and thoughts at the body, mind and intellect levels is a much more valid relinquishment than a hasty discarding of one's earthly possessions. The traditional picture of an ascetic is that he has only a single loincloth and a begging bowl as his own and lives under some way-side tree. But even in this condition of voluntary poverty, attachment to that meagre loin cloth and insignificant kamaṇḍalu can chain his mind down, refusing him admission into the Highest. 

Janaka seems to remember the stinging words of criticism of his Teacher in the earlier chapter. Janaka lives in a palace amidst all the apparently worldly luxuries. What has he renounced? Here is the answer from the royal saint himself.

From this concept of the State of Supreme non-dual Self which remains the same in all the three periods of time, Immutable and Eternal springs forth the subtle doctrine of Vedānta that is ‘non-origination’ (ajāta-vāda). In fact, the fragrance and beauty of this doctrine, are from the flowers of the Upaniṣads. We must, as students of the Hindu philosophical thoughts admit that Sage Aṣṭāvakra was, perhaps, the first to recognise and express this suggestion given by Upaniṣads roughly into the form of a doctrine of Vedānta. Later on in Māṇḍūkya Kārikā we find this doctrine elaborate and expounded into a logical and acceptable philosophical thought. The state of experience expounded here lies beyond the storms and agitations of the matter equipments in man, and therefore, this Transcendental State is the state of Bliss, ever undisturbed and Absolute.