Sat-Chit-Ananda

Existence-Consciousness-Bliss — the classical Advaita definition of brahman.

Overview

Sat-chit-ananda is not three properties stacked on top of each other but three doorways into one reality. Sat is pure being (isness); chit is pure awareness; ananda is the value or fullness that reality carries when it is directly known. Any of the three can be the starting point for investigation — Swami Sarvapriyananda notes that the sixteenth verse of chapter two takes the sat approach.

In Advaita, sat-chit-ananda names what the atman really is once the superimposed anatman (body, mind, intellect) is discriminated out. It is also what brahman is. Since atman and Brahman are non-different (tat-tvam-asi), sat-chit-ananda describes the self and the absolute in a single breath.

Related concepts

• brahman — what sat-chit-ananda describes
• atman — identical with Brahman; sat-chit-ananda is its nature
• sat — the existence doorway; developed in detail in 02-16
• ananta — infinity, often paired (satyam jnanam anantam brahma)
• tat-tvam-asi — the mahavakya asserting atman = Brahman

In the Gita

• 02-11-12 — Krishna begins teaching the nature of the self
• 02-16 — the sat approach developed in full

Lecture evidence

• Ep. 3 [~10:00]: Brahman as sat-chit-ananda — the self is not a thing alongside other things but isness itself.
• Ep. 5 [06:00]: Krishna is teaching the Vedanta theory of the self; sat-chit-ananda is what Brahman is, and you are that.