Wholesome Joy

The joy that comes from realisation of the Self, or the vision of God, saints say, is beyond words, beyond thought and images. It disenchants the world of its allure, the Self being seen as the ground of all phenomena.  This is poetically expressed in various ways, and here Arunagirinathar describes it thus:

6.
பெரும்பைம் புனத்தினுட்சிற்றேனல் காக்கின்ற பேதைகொங்கை 

விரும்பும் குமரனை மேய்யன்பினான் மெல்ல மெல்லவுள்ள 

அரும்புந் தனிப்பர மானந்தந் தித்தித் தறிந்தவன்றே

 கரும்புந் துவர்த்துச் செந்தேனும் புலித்தறக் கைத்ததுவே.

The joy that comes out of realisation of the Self, or the vision of God, saints say, is beyond words, beyond thought and images. It disenchants the world of its allure, the Self being seen as the ground of all phenomena.  This is poetically expressed in various ways, and here Arunagirinathar describes it thus:

The highlighted words mean:

"As I slowly came to think more and more of Kumaran with true love, an incomparable and great joy flowered in me; the moment i tasted its sweetness,  sugarcane lost its sweetness,  the red honey soured and all such taste turned bitter".

Here, Variar Swamigal notes that Sugarcane and Honey stand for the joys of this world. When the true transcendant joy is known, the joy that was known to reside in objects loses its value.

There are two verses quoted by Variar:

"Once desire for union in  a troubled life

with them of nipples like buds

is lost and gaining in love

for the one in Tiruputhur,

every thought that is born,

look, grows more sweet than Sugar cane"

(Thirunavukkarasar)

And then,

"When love was born and the mind was seen as space,

Sugarcane turned bitter, the honey went sour"

(Thirumandiram).

When the truth of wholeness is known, the happiness that is born of fragmented experience  is gone. I think this merely means that the joy of living still remains, but its source is no more objectified, but is seen to be non-dual. The subject and the object are one with the experiencing of joy.

Here two verses of Guru Vachaka Kovai seem relevant:

"What exists is consciousness,

Of consciousness is born happiness.

To find joy in the Other,

is a kind of debauchery.

Unclouded truth lies in the sense of Self.

In indulgence with objects of imagination,

Where the awareness of Self is abstracted,

let me know, whether you can find true happiness."

(Verse 584)

The point is, do we see the world directly as it is, or as coloured by our imagination- our habits, prejudices, desires and aversions. 'Truth' is the direct experience of the source of all phenomena, and the experiencing of the Other, the non-Self, is false Being, unreliable happiness.

The same idea, in other words:

"Only those who do not find

joy in their own nature

are perplexed like the musk deer.

When one know what one is,

then one pursues not the world,

but abides as what one is."

(Verse 1028).

Enjoyment of senses is not denied, I feel. What is the ground of senses, what gives meaning to senses, the Self, it is there that true joy resides. When the source, which constantly renews itself, and never grows old, is reached, when truth of our existence is breached, then all fragmentation simply ceases to be. Then there is no question of hankering after the pleasures of senses: they are not available anymore for enjoyment.