Talk:The Forty Saṁskāras:Paradise or the Path of Ātmajñāna
By Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati Swami
Our worldly existence is a mixture of joys and sorrows. Some experience more joy than sorrow and some more sorrow. Then there may be a rare individual here or there who can control his mind and keep smiling even in the midst of sorrow. On the other hand, we do see quite a number of people who have much to be happy about but who keep a long face. If a man lacks for something it means he is unhappy.
All creatures long for everlasting happiness. There are two abodes of eternal happiness. One is devaloka, the world of celestials or paradise, the other is ātmajñāna, the state of awareness of the Self. The Ātman, the Self, is bliss; it is the Brahman. To realise this truth is to attain everlasting blessedness. But this state, this joy supreme, is not experienced by the mind or the senses. It is the highest, the most exalted state and it transcends the senses and the mind; it is a state in which a man becomes aware that "the body is not I, the intelligence is not I, the consciousness is not I".
Paradise is the place where happiness is always experienced by the mind and the senses. Music and dance — music of the gandharvas, dance by Rambhā and Menakā — Kalpaka, the tree that grants all wishes, Kāmadhenu, the cow that grants all wishes, the garden known as Nandana: devaloka means all these. It is indeed a playground and there it is always joy. But a difference exists between the joy known in paradise and the bliss experienced by the knower of the Self. It is true that there is eternal happiness in paradise but not so for the man who goes there because he will not be a permanent resident of it. If he has earned a good deal of merit he will be able to reside there until he is reborn. When he has enjoyed the fruits of his meritorious actions, the Lord will send him back to earth. It is true that there are accounts in the Purāṇas of mortals who earn a great deal of merit and become gods themselves to reside in the celestial world. But the same Purāṇas also tell us that the gods themselves are not permanent denizens of paradise. There are stories in these texts of the celestials being hounded out of paradise by demons like Sūrapadma and Mahiṣāsura and of Indra, their king, himself being pushed down to earth to undergo suffering there.
On a hypothetical basis, eternal happiness may be ours in svarga or paradise. But there is no instance of anyone having actually lived there permanently nor does it seem possible for anyone to do so.
Happiness gained through the senses is derived from external objects. These cannot be ours for all time. There were occasions when Indra had to suffer all by himself when he lost everything, including Kāmadhenu, the Kalpaka tree, Airāvata and even Indrāṇī. So the happiness associated with paradise, which is dependent on external objects, can never be enduring. Sadananda or eternal bliss is for him who has neither anything external nor internal and who dwells in his Self as a sthita-prajña (a man of steady wisdom) as explained by the Lord in the Gītā, one who remains nailed to his Self. The joy experienced by Indra is but a droplet of the vast ocean of Ātmic bliss, so says the Ācārya in his Mañīṣāpañcakam: Yad saukhyāmbudileśaleśata ime śakrādayo nirvṛtāḥ.
According to Upaniṣads you will have internal bliss if the senses and the mind are removed in the same way as you draw off the rib from a stalk of corn and remain just the Ātman. It needs great courage to pluck out the body and the senses realising that “I am not the body. Its joys and sorrows are not mine”. Such courage is not earned without inner purity. Conduct of religious rituals is meant for this, for cittaśuddhi (purity of the consciousness). There are forty saṁskāras to refine a man with Vedic mantras and to involve him in the rites associated with those mantras. These are the first steps towards the indissoluble union of the individual self with the Absolute — it is Advaitic mukti, non-dualistic release.
We must strive to become inwardly pure by the performance of works. Then, with the inner organs (antaḥkaraṇa) also cleansed, we must meditate on the Self and become one with It. This is the concept of Śaṅkara. If a man has such a goal before him and keeps performing rituals throughout (even without becoming a sannyāsin) he goes to Brahmaloka on death. During the great deluge when Brahmā is absorbed in the Brahman he too attains non-dualistic liberation, so says Śaṅkara. But if a man performs rituals for the sake of rituals without keeping before him the goal of oneness with the Brahman, he will be rewarded with paradise, but not the paradise that is eternal. Though the stay be brief he will enjoy greater happiness there than on earth. It is saṁskāras that earn a man heaven.