Bliss
What is ānanda, bliss? Its nature is happiness. So may one know one's own Self as being, consciousness, and bliss.
What is ānanda (bliss)? It is of the nature of happiness. In this way, one should know one's own Self as being-consciousness-bliss.
You feel happy the moment a long want is satisfied. In this teaching, where is that happiness coming from?
- From the object you finally got, which carries bliss into you
- From your own fullness, briefly uncovered when the wanting mind goes quiet
- From the mind producing a new pleasure that was not there before
- From the Self acquiring a bliss it did not have until now
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Bliss is what you are
Bliss is named simply: happiness. But the word is easy to mishear. We know happiness as something that arrives, the relief when a long want is finally met, and then thins out again. That coming and going belongs to objects and to the mind that chases them. The bliss meant here does not come and does not go. It is called sukhasvarūpa, happiness as the very nature of the Self, not a happiness the Self receives.
Seen this way, the satisfaction we do feel is read backwards. The object did not carry happiness into us. When the wanting mind grew quiet for a moment, our own fullness showed through, the way it shows in deep sleep, where nothing is owned and yet nothing is missed. So the search outward is not wrong so much as aimed wrong: it looks for a fullness that is already here, wearing it as oneself.
And with this the three names close into one. Being, consciousness, and bliss are not three layers stacked in the Self, but one reality pointed to three times: that it is, that it knows, that it is full. Then the definition turns around. This is not a description to hold at arm's length. It asks one to know this being, consciousness, and bliss as one's own Self.
If the happiness you have chased was your own fullness all along, what would change in the chasing?
In the commentaries
Bliss here is not a feeling the Self happens to have, nor a pleasure it reaches when a desire is met. It is sukhasvarūpa, the very being of the Self, the same fullness that the deep-sleep state tastes when no object is present and nothing is lacking. So the three pointers do not name three pieces of the Self. Being, consciousness, and bliss are one reality said three ways, and then the definition turns inward: this is not a fact to file away but the Self one is asked to recognise as oneself.