Sai Baba on Ananda, Catch It If You Can

(A short Essay)

Of course you know what it is; otherwise you wouldn’t keep trying to catch it.  It’s that sense of delight we experience now and again, a freedom from ourselves, you might say.

According to Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, holding onto the sense of delight is important.  He says, “When the world melts away, when there is bliss, or even when there is a temporary feeling of happiness, hold to that state and stay with it, and do not allow yourself to fall back into ego emotions and thoughts.”

But what is the source of this bliss, this Ananda?  Where do we go to get it?  Sai Baba explains, “From man comes a series of spiritual rays whose quality is delight, bliss.  All man need do is to manifest that bliss.  The idea of search is in error. Everyone already knows the truth.  All that is needed is to put that truth into practice, to manifest it.”

So, the spiritual rays are already within us. “Pure bliss is the innate nature of man,” Puttaparthi Sai says. But why then aren’t we always feeling blissful?

The Beloved Guru gives an example, “The Lord’s name is like a mountain of sugar.  So long as the sugar is on the tongue you feel the sweetness in taste.  Similarly, so long as the heart has love, peace and devotion, you feel bliss.”

The realization that comes, after pondering this teaching, is that once love, peace and devotion are no longer in the heart, once hate, anger, jealousy, greed and fear, for example, push out the bliss-giving emotions, then the devotee has forgotten God.  The ego has taken over.  This is why Lord Sai repeatedly asks, “Why fear then I am here?”  If you maintain a sense of constant, integrated awareness of your connection with Omniscience, Omnipresence, and Omnipotence, at all times then you can hold on to the bliss.

Meanwhile, Bhagawan Baba warns that the acquisition of wealth and possessions should not be mistaken as the means to achieve bliss.  There is a difference between enjoying worldly comfort and enjoying inward bliss.  One does not need worldly comfort in order to experience Ananda.

“Man still believes that bliss can be got from the external world,” Sai Baba says.  “He hoards wealth, authority, fame and learning, in order to acquire happiness.  But he finds that they are all fraught with fear, anxiety and pain.  The millionaire is beset by the tax gatherer, the cheat, the donation hunter, the house breaker, and his sons and kinsmen who clamor for their share.  Happiness of material origins is short lived and has misery as its obverse.”

But no one can steal the bliss you are feeling when you watch the sun setting beyond the fields, or the moon rising above the distant mountains.  Catch those moments.  Hold onto them.  According to Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, feeling such delight is what you were born to do.