The Ultimate Truth

Dedicated
to my loving son
Dr. Viswam Nathan

on
Friday the March 2nd 2018.

joyfulliving@gmail.com Raja Subramaniyan March 2nd 2018

 Joyfulness
Vedas declare that the Brahman alone is real and everything else is an illusion. The entire
universe is mere name and form. The only substance that support this illusory universe
is Brahman. This is the ultimate truth.
It is relatively easy for the mind to inquire into the reality of the universe and figure out
that it indeed is an illusion. Since the mind is also part of the illusion, it is not possible for
it to identify the reality that sustains the illusory world. Brahman is nameless, formless
and attribute less and therefore, it is beyond the reach of the words and therefore the
mind.
Brahman is described in Vedas as Existence, Awareness and Joyfulness. Even these three
terms are abstract concepts that cannot be explained in words but the mind knows them.
It is not possible to explain in words what sweetness means but everyone knows what it
is. Similarly, everyone knows Existence, Awareness, Joyfulness and therefore, Brahman.
We continue to remain ignorant not because we do not know Brahman but because we
do not know that it is the underlying substance of the entire creation. The mind, which is
a part of the illusion continues to search for the real, not knowing that it already knows!
Existence is Brahman. Awareness is Brahman. Joyfulness is Brahman.
Vedas lead us from ignorance to knowledge by giving us pointers to realize that we
already know the ultimate truth. Gaining knowledge takes time and effort involving
accumulation of facts and figures at the micro level. Realization happens in an instant
when the big picture is seen by connecting the dots.
It may be difficult to figure out that the foundation of the entire creation is Brahman but
it is not impossible. If we conduct a serious and in-depth inquiry into the meaning of any
one of the terms Existence, Awareness or Joyfulness, we will surely gain the insight which
will transform us into an enlightened person. The purpose of this in-depth analysis is to
realize that we already know intimately the only reality that sustains the entire universe.
Joyfulness is the easiest of the three terms which could be subjected to an in-depth
analysis for the purpose of understanding the ultimate truth. Every human being has
experienced joyfulness in life and can vividly recollect their moments of joyfulness.
Therefore, it should be easy to conduct this in-depth analysis involving its source, nature,
description, causes and effects. The objective of doing this analysis is not to describe
Joyfulness in words, which is impossible, but to enable self-realization. This analysis is
merely a tool for self-help, in the process of self-enquiry. If one is not keen to find the
ultimate substance that supports the universe, then these words are useless. Just as a
scientist conducts a serious investigation to gain insight of the chosen subject, one should
be deeply interested to figure out why Vedas say that Joyfulness is the substance that
sustains the entire creation. Only then it is possible to realize the ultimate truth.

joyfulliving@gmail.com Raja Subramaniyan March 2nd 2018

Joyfulness is not just Happiness
Happiness is the opposite of sadness and both these terms represent a host of positive
and negative emotions experienced by mind. Joyfulness is not an emotion. It is the
substance on which all emotions are built. Let us understand this through an example.
You are an ardent fan of Liverpool team who watches all the games played by the top
teams of Premier League, every week-end all through the season. You feel very happy
and elated when Liverpool wins and feel sad and upset when it loses. But the experience
of watching football is invariably joyful.
Similarly, life is joyful for all living beings with all its ups and downs, especially because
of the ups and downs. And that is why everyone wants to live.
In football, although you want Liverpool to win, it is not possible for you to do anything
that will help the team to win. Similarly ups and downs happen in life without our control.
When everything happens in the way we want we are happy and the opposite scenario
makes us sad. On the whole life is joyful.
It is impossible to feel thrilled and happy when Liverpool scores a goal if you are not
upset or bothered when they concede a goal. The distance travelled by a ball while going
up is same as the distance travelled by it while coming down.
A football match lasts for 90 minutes. When Liverpool scores a goal, you are thrilled for
few minutes. That happens rarely during the 90 minutes. And in many matches neither
team scores any goals. You do not watch the match for the possibility of experiencing
this few minutes of thrill that may or may not happen. You like to watch the match from
the beginning to the end irrespective of the goal status.
But in life, due to ignorance, people ‘work’ for few moments of happiness not realizing
life is joyful all the time. If we understand the fundamental truth in life, we can live
joyfully without any struggle or effort. In a football match, a player is not working hard
to score a goal. He simply plays the game. It is our imagination that he is working hard.
A goal simply happens. That is the beauty of the game and life.
You like to watch the games live and experience the ups and downs and possibilities of
ups and downs as it is happening. Games with known results are not equally interesting.
Similarly life will not be interesting without the inexplicable and unforeseen ups and
downs. Variation is the secret of creation and everything in the creation keep changing
all the time unpredictably and uncontrollably making the life joyful.
Thus joyfulness is the sum total of all the shades of emotions including happiness and
sadness. Since the entire creation is continuously changing, emotions that are
experienced in mind will also be changing but Joyfulness is eternal and permanent.

joyfulliving@gmail.com Raja Subramaniyan March 2nd 2018

Joyfulness IS Happiness.
Happiness is merely an emotion. If we explore deeply to find out what makes us happy
or how we experience happiness, we will see how it is not different from Joyfulness.
You follow the ranking of Liverpool over the years and would love to see it finishing top
of the league. Because of your interest in the team you follow the performance of other
top competing clubs and the top football players in the world. In short you know a lot
about football in general and Liverpool in particular. If you are ignorant of all these, the
mere sight of a ball getting into the net at the end of the ground will not make you happy.
You are able to enjoy football because of your knowledge. In other words your knowledge
is the basis or foundation of your experience.
Knowledge is merely accumulated thoughts. The external world is captured by our five
sense organs and converted as thoughts in the mind. The preferences of our sense organs
create likes and dislikes. We want to have what we like and avoid what we dislike. This
want is a thought that haunts the mind.
You want Liverpool to win. As you are watching a match, your accumulated knowledge
of football facilitates you to appreciate the nuances of the play while the question lingers
in the mind “Will they score a goal?”. If they concede a goal, there are more depressing
thoughts whether will they be able to at least equalize the score? At that point if they
score a goal all such nagging thoughts are removed from your mind and briefly you
experience a thoughtless state, which is known as happiness. Slowly, the thought, ‘now
they have equalized, will they score a goal to win?’ starts haunting the mind.
No object or event in the external world can be a source of happiness. Millions of people
in the world are not bothered about football and Liverpool winning the Championship
does not make everyone happy. But YOU are happy not because Liverpool won but
because the thoughts in your mind disappear briefly paving way to your happiness.
In short, presence of thoughts is not happiness and absence of thoughts in the mind is
happiness. Thoughts can be compared to the clouds that prevent us from experiencing
the sunshine. Sun is shining all the time. But we get to experience it only in the absence
of clouds. Similarly, Joyfulness is eternal and we get to experience it as happiness only
during the brief moments when the thoughts are cleared from our mind.
During deep sleep, thoughts are totally absent and we are joyful. We experience the
same pure happiness during the waking period when thoughts are cleared. Thoughts can
be cleared only when they become intense and haunting the mind. This is why everyone
sets a goal and works hard to achieve it so that they can experience brief happiness.
You deeply want Liverpool to win. Such thoughts build up the internal pressure in the
mind. A goal removes this pressure by annihilating all the thoughts and you experience
brief moments of happiness, which is same as the eternal and unchanging joyfulness.

joyfulliving@gmail.com Raja Subramaniyan March 2nd 2018

Joyfulness is eternal
This does not mean joyfulness was present in Jurassic period and will be continue to be
present for thousands of more years. It merely means Joyfulness is timeless. It is not
possible to explain what does timelessness means but most of us are fortunate enough
to experience this timeless state.
When there are no pressing problems in life, a goal in football, facilitates enjoying brief
moments of timelessness. If problems relating to family, work and health are haunting
the mind of a middle aged not-so-rich person, it may not be possible for a goal to remove
such pressing thoughts. A news that a million dollar lottery is won, will certainly make
that person very happy and enjoy brief period of timelessness. It should be noted that
the actual money is not yet received and none of the problems are actually solved. But
the mere news of the lottery removed all the pressing thoughts from the mind paving
way to happiness.
Joyfulness is eternal or timeless. When our mind experiences this timelessness, we call it
happiness. As it happens in the deep sleep, we experience this timelessness in the waking
period when the thoughts are cleared from the mind. Normally, accumulation of thoughts
and then clearance of the same is the way to experience this timelessness. There is
another way which is to consciously clear all the thoughts from the mind. This is popularly
known as meditation.
All of us are bound by three limitations which prevent us from experiencing this eternal
happiness. They are Object, Space and Time. If I am this body I cannot be anything else.
This is object limitation. If I am here, I cannot be elsewhere. This is space limitation. I
am limited by my lifetime. These three limitations are not real. Object is an illusion and
does not exist. Time and Space are imagined by mind for giving reality to the object.
After sufficient training in formal meditation, we can remove these three artificial
limitations and experience the timeless state consciously. Object, Space and Time exist
only as our thoughts. During deep sleep, since thoughts are totally absent, we experience
the eternal joyfulness. When we wake up we can recall that we had a good sleep.
Meditation gives us same experience when we are awake.
The entire creation exists only as our thoughts. No thoughts no universe. It is not
suggested here that we should remove thoughts in order to be happy. We need to see
that whenever we are happy, there will not be thoughts in the mind. When we are really
happy, we will not be thinking ‘I am happy now’. Time exists only as thoughts in our mind
and it has no independent existence. That is the reason, when we are really happy there
is no time. Joyfulness is eternal. We forget the whole world when we are happy.
To prove our hands are clean, we do not have to make it dirty and then clean it. All we
have to do is to understand that the joyfulness is the foundation for the entire universe.

joyfulliving@gmail.com Raja Subramaniyan March 2nd 2018

Joyfulness is the foundation
The only means of all our experience is our sense organs. The existence of the universe
is perceived by our sense organs and converted as thoughts in our mind. In deep sleep,
the entire creation is negated because there are no thoughts but joyfulness remains
because it is the foundation. We do recall whether we had a good sleep or disturbed
sleep. The fact that we are able to recall joyfulness – even though the mind was totally
absent during deep sleep – shows that it is the foundation.
Creation is varying forms. This variation enables varied experiences in our mind. The
underlying substance that sustains all these varied experiences is Joyfulness.
Watching movies provide different experience compared to watching football. But the
underlying joyfulness is one. You may be sorrowful sometime and happy sometime but
there is no variation in joyfulness. Experiences depend on the environment but the
joyfulness is independent.
Life is one continuous flow of joyfulness without any beginning or end. Starting point and
ending point is the creation of our mind. The football match might be scheduled to begin
at certain time of the day and the Premier League might have been formed in certain
year. Just because every human being agree on such segmentation based on the
imaginary concept of time, they do not become real.
Watching football is joyful. When did this joyfulness start? You may come up with some
story to explain how you got your interest in football and when you started watching it
regularly and such. But it is still your imagination that it had a starting point.
Birth and death of others is real to us but not our own. Our own birth and death are
stories and not real. Life is joyful without a beginning or an end. It may be argued that
since other’s birth and death are real, our life also should be having a starting point and
end point. But it is in your mind that these starting point and end point are created. Your
mind was not present to mark your birth and it will not be there to record your death.
When we get up from deep sleep, we can recall we had a good sleep. If we do not get
up……will that be different? To be joyful we do not need anything, especially our mind.
Joyfulness is the foundation which is eternal and the only real substance. The entire
creation including our mind are variations. These variations cause positive and negative
emotions which are illusory experiences on the underlying substance. When we are
thinking we are not conscious of this joyfulness and when we go beyond the limitation of
object, time and space, we realize that we are eternal and unlimited joy.
In your life, every experience, conversation, encounter, thought exists within your sphere
of awareness. Your awareness exists always and all through. Nothing exists for you unless
it is within your awareness. So this unchanging and eternal Awareness or Existence is the
foundation. We can call it as Joyfulness since it is joyful.

joyfulliving@gmail.com Raja Subramaniyan March 2nd 2018

You are Joyfulness
The nature of the living beings is to be joyful. If we are happy we are contended. If we
are not, we strive hard to change the status. This is feature is common to all the living
beings. Although it is a fact that people undergo many emotions, everyone prefer only
the positive emotions. When you are happy, you are your true self.
You like yourself and you like anything else in the creation for the sake of yourself. You
like football because it serves as tool to be your true self. When you are functioning as a
limited human being you feel guilty about the past and anxious of the future. Football
helps you to remove this imaginary time and brings you to the present and you are your
natural self, which is joyfulness.
The entire creation is experienced through the body-mind complex. Just as there is
variation in creation, individual mind also varies from time to time and from one to
another. The mind continuously builds up a self-story from what is experienced and this
self-story assumes the role of I. This I governs and colors all further experiences. If you
are ignorant of the fundamental truth, this I will drive your life and make it miserable.
When the mind understands that the self-story is imaginary and our true self is joyfulness,
we get liberated from the control of the self-story. Although the mind continues to
function as before, paving ways for varied experiences and emotions, suddenly the whole
creation become beautiful and nice. The mere sight of the blue sky gives happiness.
When two individuals fall in love with each other, one will appear as a divine creature to
the other. This happens because the self-story of both gets merged and function as one
during the period when love lasts. One likes oneself and therefore the other appears
beautiful. Even if there is disagreement or misunderstanding, as long as the love lasts,
all the experiences are joyful. Unlike love, knowledge is permanent.
Understanding the truth that our real self is joyfulness, enables the individual mind to fall
in love with the entire creation forever. In fact, life is joyful for all human beings all the
time. Due to ignorance they struggle to ‘make’ the life joyful. On gaining the knowledge
that the nature of our true self is joyfulness, the mind and the self-story are seen as part
of the illusion. This illusory universe facilitates conscious experience of joyfulness. In deep
sleep and in death joyfulness persists but we do not experience it as it happens. When
we are alive and awake, joyfulness is experienced. Life is joyful all the time.
Every aspect connected to football brings happiness. You enjoy wearing the jersey with
the picture of the favorite player, travelling to the stadium, singing along with fellow fans,
discussing and reliving the important moments after the game. The mere sight of the
green football field brings about happiness. Similarly, when the fundamental truth is
known the whole life is joyful. There is no need to change anything in order to experience
joyfulness. There is no need to go to any places nor do any action to bring about
happiness in life. There are no more goals. Life is joyful because you are joyfulness.

joyfulliving@gmail.com Raja Subramaniyan March 2nd 2018