The underlying reason behind an increasing number of people getting angry, cynical, and restless is their disconnect with their religion – something they can’t even acknowledge. Humans evolved so rapidly and extensively by understanding the vastness of the universe and the laws by which it is governed. What the ancient people imagined to be gods and demons later came to be known as natural and mental forces. Religion has served well in giving humanity a structured way to live and flourish. However, those who are disconnected, for whatever reason, are sunk in despair. They sit in front of the TV and nowadays, with their mobile phones, with numb minds and wither away their cognitive energy in the ever-open vanity fair of this world. 

I am a deeply religious person. Practicing my own Sanatan Dharma, I have thoroughly read and practiced its basic tenets. Its universal outlook and grasp of cosmic reality is amazing. I consider science a very narrow window into the Reality in which we live, like a candle lightening a huge cave with no end in sight. My lament is about religions becoming dogmatic rather than a quest. Some people in the West have woken up to this issue and I was delighted to attend some lectures, thanks to YouTube, discussing practical ways to feel at ease while living in the modern fast-paced and competitive world. 

I came across a lecture by Dr Rupert Sheldrake, who has been a plant pathologist, with a Doctorate at Cambridge University. He worked in ICRISAT, Hyderabad in the 1970s, got attracted to Indian spiritual practices (while remaining a devout Christian that he was and remains), and pursued philosophy since then. His lecture took me to David Bentley Hart, who pointed out the similarity in Shankaracharya’s sat-chit-ananda, Ibn Arbi’s wujud-wijad-wajd and Augustine’s summo meo—something that is beyond the utmost heights and simultaneously intimo meo—more inward than the inmost depths, the concept of God. I later read Hart’s very well-done book, The Experience of God: Being Consciousness, Bliss. 

This book took me to Thomas Traherne’s Centuries of Meditations, available on the Internet as a PDF file that can be downloaded for free. There are so many special things about this book to which this blog is devoted. Mentioned as “A shoe-maker’s son,” in Wikipedia, Thomas Traherne (1637-1674) graduated from Oxford before becoming a priest in the Church of England, or the Anglican Church. He was not considered a literary figure and when he died at a young age of 37, he had written some 510 paragraphs, each 100 paragraphs called a century, but the fifth century stopped at the tenth stanza because of Traherne’s sudden death. 

For over 200 years, this manuscript survived in neglect as a bundle of scribbled papers. As goes the legend, one connoisseur found them in a street book stall in a stack of old papers. It took some ten years in establishing the literary quality of the manuscript and the identity of Thomas Traherne as the author. The book was published in 1908 and later, the celebrated English writer, C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) called Centuries of Meditations “almost the most beautiful book in English.” This book is a popular research subject, and the title of this blog is taken from a master’s thesis at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, awarded in 1965. 

Centuries of Meditations revolves around the concept of “felicity,” the state of bliss, as its thematic axis. This rings a bell in my ears, as the concept of Ananda (Bliss), is also central to my religion. In the Shri Ramakrishna Mission Order, it is very common for the saints to have “ananda” as their part of their ordained name as monks. The most celebrated monk being Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902). In fact, I named my sons, Aseem Anand and Amol Anand, in the hope and belief that they may both bring happiness to their lives as well as the lives of the people who would cross their paths. 

So, after spending nearly a month with Centuries of Meditations and grasping the theme of God living right inside the human body as consciousness, I could see the mystery of life as the pursuit of the Bliss that comes out of acting in the similitude of God. And as Thomas Traherne described God as love, it follows that man is to live a life governed by the principles of love. He writes:

That all the World is yours, your very senses and the inclinations of your mind declare. The Works of God manifest, His laws testify, and His word Both prove it. His attributes most sweetly make it evident. The powers of your soul confirm it. So that in the midst of such rich demonstrations, you may infinitely delight in God as your Father, Friend and Benefactor, in yourself as His Heir, Child and Bride, in the whole World, as the Gift and Token of His love; neither can anything, but Ignorance destroy your joys. (Century 1, § 16)

So, it is ignorance – in our separateness, or isolation, our anger and fear – that insulates us from the natural and innate feeling of the joy of living, called joie de vivre by the French people for a cheerful enjoyment of life, an exultation of spirit – be it the joy of conversation, the joy of eating, the joy of anything one might do, my writing this blog, and your’s reading it. Whatever is done with joy as the base, is good, promotes goodness, and multiplies joy in the process. 

The Taittiriya Upanishad declares: आनन्दो ब्रह्मेति व्यजानात्, know Bliss for the Eternal. आनन्दाध्येव खल्विमानि भूतानि जायन्ते, For, from Bliss alone, does life appear, are these creatures born and live by Bliss, आनन्दं प्रयन्त्यभिसंविशन्तीति, and to Bliss they go hence and return (III.6.1

Adi Shankaracharya wrote a beautiful devotional poem, आनन्द लहरी, Waves of Bliss Divine, venerating Bhavani, the Mother Goddess of Creation. It is a Psalm, a type of power literature in verses, by reciting which, the innate God propensities and qualities get activated. Now, some cynics may say that if God is beyond qualities, how can there be Godly qualities. So, what we are talking about is not God’s qualities but how God reflects in our mind. When sunrays fall on a convex lens, they converge to light up a fire…. It is just like that! 

The twelfth stanza of this 20-stanza poem says: 

अयः स्पर्शे लग्नं सपदि लभते हेमपदवीं

यथा रथ्यापाथः शुचि भवति गंगौघमिलितम् ।

तथा तत्तत्पापैरतिमलिनमन्तर्मम यदि

त्वयि प्रेम्णासक्तं कथमिव न जायेत विमलम् ॥ 

Bliss is contagious. Like the philosopher’s stone turns iron into gold, water in the gutters turn good upon joining River Ganga, so a mind devoted to God receives bliss.  

So, as the Taittiriya Upanishad proclaims, as Adi Shankaracharya teaches, as Thomas Traherne’s Centuries of Meditations postulates, it is very much in our power to connect with the God within and become humble, spread love, enhance knowledge, communicate well, conduct ourselves with dignity, and thereby disperse away sadness like clouds and feel the ever-present Bliss as the sun in the daytime and the stars in the night sky. Mahatma Gandhi expressed this best, “Seek not greater wealth, but simpler pleasure; not higher fortune, but deeper felicity.”