2. So many thousands of authors and poets have
written about joy, but still I feel like sharing what I
seem to have experienced.
At certain stages, the joy of life is a concomitant
experience of; a result of a chemical reaction, or
illumination of a bulb in electrical circuit, or fire
resulting from striking of a match stick.
In childhood it is associated with good food, good
clothes, and toys and pampering with other things.
It could as well be hugging, cuddling, patting on
back or a kiss. Latter it may be associated with
adolescent romance and latter with material
possession, social prestige, accolade from society,
political power, art in various forms, creativity in
different fields; and so on!
As we evolve further; (which is not exactly linear or
sequential and may be simultaneous with above
phenomena) a new experience begins to emerge.
This experience is of joy without chemical reaction,
joy without illumination of a bulb, and joy without
3. striking a match stick! This joy is the joy of being
the chemical process, being the electricity and being
the burning itself! We have now got freed (tyaga)
from the realm of and bondage of reactive
happiness; that results from and depends on; the
fulfillment of our needs and wants! We have got rid
(tyaga) of our felt needs, felt wants and felt desires.
This was very difficult to imagine in absence of its
experience and I used to feel that this was escapism
from the struggle of life! But now I understand that
tyaga is returning from our periphery and merging
with our center or our core! If we correlate this with
the concept of cosmic homeostasis, then it becomes
clear that in this state we become one with the core
of the universe and freed (tyaga) from the bondage
and dragging by the fleeting aspect of universe!
This can be described roughly as the phenomenon of
sublimation of one’s personality.
In the 12th chapter of Gita there is a verse, stating
that through study; we get knowledge, through
knowledge we achieve dhyana, through dhyana we
4. practice karmafalatyaga and through tyaga, we
attain shanti i.e. peace.
If we consider the life as a learning process and our
experience of life as knowledge, then the everlasting
unconditional joy in the very process of whatever we
do is dhyana, and the state of freedom from every
kind of subjectivity is tyaga! Tyaga is a state of
extraordinary ecstasy (shanti). The apparent
byproduct of tyaga is withering away of the
commercial or even professional considerations! The
life is totally free of; every kind of subjectivity and
hence every kind of felt need, want or desire! Thus
dhyana and tyaga culminate into shanti i.e. eternal
and ecstatic peace, which is not an idle or resting
state; but a state of, “being transtemporal living
space” or cosmic consciousness!
The practical step or the process to realize this
state; is NAMASMARAN; which has been
illumining thousands of generations from time
immemorial and will continue to illumine the
