Taittirya Upanishad (II-8) gives an account of the hierarchy of blissful states to show the immensity and infinity of Brahman – bliss (Brahma – Ananda). As per Hinduism, the bliss that is Brahman is not arrived at by multiplying the known joys of the world. It alone is bliss, and all others are but the expressions of this bliss. Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (IV-3.32) says that all things live on a particle of this bliss. All other joys, human or divine, are like drops from that sea of bliss. This analogy intends to show that as all drops return to the sea, all joys of the world radiate and merge in the non-dual bliss of Brahman.
Chandogya
Upanishad (Chapter VII) gives a graphic account of Sage Narada approaching the
wise Sanatkumara with a request to teach him the way to overcome sorrow. He
tells Sanatkumara that he has mastered all the sciences and arts and despite
that, happiness and peace elude him. He had heard it said that only those who
had understood their own atmavit (selves) could hope to transcend sorrow.
Sanatkumara
tells Narada in reply that all his profound and extensive learning is but
names. Greater than the name is speech. In this way, Sanatkumara teaches the
increasing excellence of mind, will, memory, meditation, intellectual information,
strength, food, water, fire, the ether, recognition, desire and vital air.
These are but finite and limited and so cannot destroy sorrow. But the self,
the supreme reality, is the most excellent. Knowing that, al sorrows are set at
naught. Because it is the bhuma (infinite), anything greater than that cannot
exist.
That which
is bhuma is bliss (yo vai bhuma tatsukham). There could be no happiness in the
small things (nalpe sukhamasti). The infinite is non-dual. Otherwise, it will
not be infinite. The small is finite. Therefore, one who knows this infinite
does not see anything apart from it, nor hear, nor understand anything, as different
from it.
That which
is non-dual and infinite is immortal bliss. Any other entity is mortal. One who
has realized this truth about reality as being infinite and as being his own
self, he is the svarat (self-governing sovereign), rejoicing in himself (atma
kridah); in his own bliss. People who do not realize their own independent
sovereignty, wallow in ephemeral worlds, governed by external forces, bound by
them inexorably.