Bhagavagd Gita - Session 17- Track 1704

So, now what is the relationship between “Sat” and “Chit”? Now, you might say that basically Chit and Ananda are the means to approach the Sat: why? Because Sat, is in the hierarchy on the top; because without which nothing else can happen. Even Chit and Ananda, they are, as it were, one with the Sat and they depend upon the Sat. Such is the relationship. They are one with the Sat, and yet they depend upon the Sat. Sat can remain without the Chit and Ananda, but Chit and Ananda cannot remain without Sat. There is a status, there is a state in which Sat alone can exist, where even Chit and Ananda are rolled up as it were, where they do not remain as Chit and Ananda. It is just as you heat anything, ultimately it becomes vapour, and it is reduced to ākāśa, but Akasha cannot be described as pṛthvī; it is Prithvi, which ultimately became vapour and ultimately enters into Akasha, but you cannot say Akasha is Prithvi; and yet Prithvi is that; it is that in which it is reduced. And yet ākāśa is still much more than pṛthvī, or jala, or vāyu, or whatever. Similarly Chit and Ananda, when they are rolled up completely into Sat, then Sat still remains Sat. Chit and Ananda although they are in it, they are no more recognisable as Chit and Ananda. Such is the miraculous relationship that exist between Sat, Chit and Ananda.

Now, Chit itself is two fold, just as Reality is three fold: Sat, Chit and Ananda. Chit itself is two fold: Chit, which is immobile; and Chit, which is mobile. Therefore immobile-mobile is the two-fold character of Chit. The immobile Chit is really called Chit normally: it is called the “Consciousness”. The mobile Chit is called Shakti, is the “Power”, is called Action. That is why Chit is called Consciousness-Action, Consciousness-Force or Conscious Force. Now, in Consciousness-Force there is an inter-relationship: the mobility always depends upon immobility; but immobility does not depend upon mobility. Mobility when folded up becomes completely immobile, in which mobility as we understand it, may not even be recognised. So, between the Consciousness and Force, between Consciousness and Action we may say they are one, and yet, there is a hierarchy. Chit is superior to Shakti: Consciousness is superior to Action. Now, it is the union of Sat and Chit, this union is that which gives Ananda. Although Sat is Chit, and Chit is Ananda and they are all one, but if you enter into the heart of these complex threads of Satchitananda, you find that the position of Ananda is a tertiary position. The primary position is of Sat; the secondary position is of Chit. Between Chit and Shakti the primary position is of Chit; and the secondary position is of Shakti; and tertiary position, the third position is of Ananda. In other words without Sat and Chit being united there is no Ananda. Ananda is dependent. Mere Chit is not Ananda; mere Sat is not Ananda. It is Sat and Chit, when combined together gives you Ananda. Now, such is the inter-relationship between the three.

Now, if you now compare the path of Knowledge to the path of Chit, compare the path of Action with the path of Shakti, and compare the path of Bhakti to the path of Ananda, you get three paths, and between the three paths, you find the same kind of relationship as you find between Chit, Shakti and Ananda

These distinctions have to be remembered in a subtle manner in our own consciousness. The distinctions do not divide, that is the important point. When we say Chit is immobile, it does not divide itself from mobility. There is a state, in which you might say, in which the mobility can be folded up, and becomes immobile to such an extent that mobility cannot be recognised, but it does not mean that there is no mobility at all in it. Now, if you therefore understand….