Being, consciousness, bliss
What, then, is the Self? Its nature is being, consciousness, and bliss.
Then what is the Self? Its very nature is being, consciousness, and bliss (sat-cit-ānanda).
- sat-cit-ānanda
Why does the teaching name the Self being, consciousness, and bliss right after taking away the body, the senses, and the mind?
- To add three fine qualities the Self possesses on top of what it already is
- To show that what remains when all that is not the Self is removed is not nothing, but awareness that is and that is full
- To list the three sheaths that still belong to the Self
- To rank being above consciousness and consciousness above bliss
Show the answer
Being, consciousness, bliss
A moment ago the body was set down as not the Self, and the breaths, and the mind, and the intellect, and even the not-knowing that wraps them. Each was held up, looked at, and let go, because whatever can be called mine stands apart from the one who calls it so. And then the old question comes back, lighter now, with nothing left to hide behind: what, then, is the Self?
The answer comes at once. Its nature is being, consciousness, and bliss. Not that the Self owns these as a person owns a house, but that this is what it is, with nothing held in reserve. When all that could be removed has been removed, what stays is not an empty place. It is that which is, sat. It is that which knows, cit. It is that which wants for nothing, ananda. One reality, named from three sides, because no single word reaches all the way around it.
This is why the stripping away earlier did not end in nothing. A student who has just learned that he is not the body, not the senses, not the mind, can feel the ground give way, as though inquiry only takes and never gives. Here it gives. What is left over when everything unreal is set aside is the one who was doing the looking the whole time, awareness itself, present in waking and dream and deep sleep alike, never once absent. The Self was never among the things that could be lost.
What follows only unfolds this answer. Being is what abides through all three times. Consciousness is of the nature of knowing. Bliss is of the nature of happiness. The seed is set down whole right here, and the rest of the teaching is its slow opening, so that one may come to know one's own Self, and not merely the words, as being and consciousness and bliss.
When you set down everything you can call yours, what is it that is still here to do the setting down?
In the commentaries
After everything called "mine" has been set aside, the body, the breaths, the mind, even the not-knowing, the asking has to land somewhere, and here it does: the Self is of the very nature of being, consciousness, and bliss. This is not a list of three things the Self has; it is one undivided reality pointed to from three sides, that it is, that it knows, that it is full. The teaching names sat-cit-ananda not to add an attribute but to keep the inquiry from collapsing into nothing once the sheaths fall away, for what is left over when all that is not the Self is removed is not a blank but awareness itself, present and unbroken. The answer is given here in seed, and the steps that follow only open out what being, what consciousness, and what bliss each mean.