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Paul Bains's avatar

DBHart writes about 'bliss/ananda at some length in 'The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss.'

'And in the transcendental structure of consciousness we are confronted

by the presence of the absolute within even the most ordinary

acts of mind and will, and we find that the extraordinary

joys of which rational intellect is capable (whose shadow side are

equally extraordinary sorrows) far exceed what nature can adumbrate

or warrant; here too we are placed before a reality that is

logically prior to and transcendent of the intelligible configurations

of nature. And in finding an indissoluble interconnectedness

in all three of these realities taken together, we come upon the

supreme mystery of all experience.

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Lee van Laer's avatar

I agree; he does say things in complicated ways however.

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Lee van Laer's avatar

I think there are questions about the nature of joy. True joy is a fundamental, not exceptional, state; and in its natural or “pure” form it has qualities outside our ordinary understanding of the word.

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Paul Bains's avatar

Yes. Sat, Chit, Ananda.

Just been reminded of this interview with Alexandre de Salzmann Jnr:

https://www.gurdjieff.org/salzmann-alex1.htm

I saw him once, decades ago, in a meeting with Pauline

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Paul Bains's avatar

Good episode - our natural inclination is toward beauty, truth and goodness (the 'Transcendentals')...but it does need a bit of 'work' :)

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Paul Bains's avatar

Yes, but that chapter is on the whole clarifying...about the nature of God and our relationship to it...Sat, Chit, Ananda...

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