In Hinduism, Anubhava is experience or experimental knowledge. It is the ultimate understanding that represents the ‘end’ of religious and meditative life, in terms of proper goal and ultimate good.
What exactly constitutes this ultimate experience is contested
by various schools of thought. According to Vedanta, for example, in keeping
with non-dualistic premises of Advaita, one might say that ‘we are already
consummate experience,’ or perhaps better, ‘there is nothing but consummate experience.’
Profoundly realizing this truth is something akin to remembering who we are or
finding a treasuring that we already ‘possessed’, as in the stock metaphor or
the ‘misplace’ necklace found draped around one’s neck. But this kind of ‘experience’
is unique; no cognition is obtained in the usual sense, since mundane epistemologies
imply the pluralities of the knower, the known, and the process of knowing. Yet
these and all other pluralities are negated or sublated in non-dual consummate
experience.
Other schools of Vedanta also interpret consummate experience
according to their metaphysical presuppositions. For example, Ramanujacharya
and Madhavacharya both exalt anubhava as the ultimate end, but insist that in
no way does it issue in the negation of personal identity or even of cognition,
as we typically understand it. Anubhava in the case, cultivated by patterns of
bhakti (devotional practice) and meditation, yields the direct and immediate
perception of Bhagavan Vishnu. This sakshatkara (direct perception) is
thoroughly cognitive, prior, during and after this consummate event. Thus, it issues
in specific cognitive content, which, not surprisingly, follows the
metaphysical principles of Visishtadvaita (qualified non-dualism), in the case
of Madhvacharya. For these two schools, the distinctions of subject and object,
with their appropriate metaphysical nuances, obtain in consummate experience
and final (post-mortem) liberation. Both Vedantins agree, however, that
Bhagavan Vishnu has a particularly beautiful form, which is capable of being
perceived only after much purification and meditation. While bliss is a quality
intrinsic to the ‘self’ for both schools, ultimate bliss is characterized by
eternal adoration and devoted service (kainkarya) to Bhagavan Vishnu. This
presumes that various degrees of enjoyment pertain to consummate experience in
post-mortem liberation, owing to the full expansion (or not) of knowledge.
These various post-mortem states, though defined differently according to the
broader theologies of Ramanujacharya and Madhavacharya, are salokya (residing
with the deity), samipya (nearness to the deity), sarupya (sharing the form of
the deity), and sayujya (union with the deity).
What should be clear is that consummate experience begins
here and now and extends in post-mortem bliss. This, in turn, reinforces the
importance of a particular kind of experience, which is direct, personal and
immediate – a longstanding theme in Hindu religious history. Indeed, the emphasis
on direct experience has been viewed in recent times as central to the Hindu
idea of self-understanding.
Spiritual figures and thinkers of the 19th and 20th
centuries, such as Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda and Dr S. Radhakrishnan,
all focused on direct experience in their representations of Hinduism and this
focus has continued in the teachings of later spiritual figures, such as Ramana
Maharishi. Direct or felt experience of the Supreme Self has it records and
evidence in Vedas and is analyzed conceptually by Vedanta. It also flourished
in the medieval devotional poetry of South and North India. The various
devotional movements share the emphasis on the direct, immediate experience of
the Universal Being, whether it is understood as personal and endowed with
saguna (qualities) and Nirguna (void of qualities) and impersonal. All the poets
give expression to a particularly intense, direct experience of the Supreme
Self, one that often judges cultural and religious constructions. The authority
for such judgments is the immediate experience of the Supreme Self, viewed as
the ultimate goal in various sectarian traditions. The poems of Nammalvar, for
example, express this sacred experience and ultimate bliss. Indeed, later
commentaries on the poems have themselves been called anubhavagranthas (woks of
enjoyment), because they record the commentator’s own delightful experience in reading
and glossing the sacred poems of the Tamil Saints.