Bliss Gate

Ananda — the Sanskrit word for bliss or absolute joy — is the third of the three qualities that the Upanishads attribute to Brahman, the ultimate reality: Sat (truth/being), Chit (consciousness/awareness), Ananda (bliss/joy). The Lila places the Bliss Gate at Cell Sixty-One as one of the final thresholds before the journey's completion, because the experience of Ananda is not available through seeking — it is available through release.

This is the paradox that has frustrated seekers throughout history: the very act of seeking bliss makes it inaccessible, because seeking implies a seeker who is currently without the thing sought, and Ananda is precisely the recognition that you never were without it. The joy the sages describe is not a reward for spiritual achievement. It is the natural state of consciousness when the obscurations are removed.

Arriving at the Bliss Gate in the Lila is a sign that something in you has genuinely opened — that the obscurations are thinner here than they were. You may be touching a quality of background joy that does not depend on good fortune, that is present even in the midst of ordinary or difficult days.

The practice: notice, in this moment, whether there is anything wrong — not with your circumstances, but with this actual instant of experience. Most people find that the present moment itself is, at its base, okay. More than okay.

The joy I seek is the joy I am. I need only remember.