For Whom is Bliss? by John Sherman

In the tradition in which Ramana appears, whatever name it goes by, they speak of the sheaths, the coverings of the Atman. The final sheath, the final obstacle, the final obscuration goes by the name of the Anandamaya kosha—the sheath of bliss. This is the final obscuration, and often for many, a sticking point. This bliss is an experience — for whom is this experience? The experience of bliss that you know from investigation is replaced by the experience of confusion at being confronted with something that doesn't quite fit in to what your mind has decided, perhaps silently, to be the case. Therefore, if the bliss that you experience disappears and is replaced by confusion, then that isn’t what you are looking for. If it goes, it isn’t what you are looking for.

What you are looking for is yourself, which has never changed, and never will change. You know this. There, nothing is to be found that changes. There, birth and death are not to be found. So don't stop.

This is the beauty of the vichara, the investigation. This is the magnificence of it. Everything is your teacher. Everything—every thought, every feeling, every moment of bliss, every moment of confusion is now pointing you straight back to yourself. If only you will reverse the direction of your attention and follow it back. All of it is the guru on the outside pushing you to the guru on the inside pulling you. Every thought, every confusion, every mistake, every wrongness, every rightness, everything is pointing: “There, there.”

We are not here for bliss. Bliss is great but it comes and goes. The bliss that you are is permanent. The bliss that you are is that in which bliss and agony alike play. It is all in your intention, you see. It is all in what you want. If you want bliss, the experience of bliss, that's easy. There are many, many gurus wandering the land with big shakti who will give you that. And if you can't find one of those, there is always some chemical substance. Bliss is not what you are looking for.

We are all, throughout our entire lives, looking, trying to find out “Who am I?” That's all we are doing. That's all we are doing here in this life, in these bodies, trying to figure out who we are. Finally, in this meeting with Ramana Maharshi, that quest becomes conscious. Now, finally, the opportunity has appeared in your life to make this quest that has been your quest from the moment you were born, conscious, direct, unmediated. Who am I? For whom is this bliss? For whom is this confusion? Who am I? Find yourself.

Mar/Apr 2003

For Whom is Bliss?

by John Sherman