Love brings ecstasy through union with the Divine Beloved. Peace of the Divine is attained by the experience of the static aspect of the Divine through a withdrawal from the world and its activities. The Ecstasy and Ananda emerge from the dynamic aspect of the Divine. The bhakta does not want either the peace of liberation or Moksha but simply the love that sustains him. It is even said that the bhakta deliberately keeps a little veil and refuses the complete merger since the union of merger brings Peace but then one can no longer experience love since love, by its very nature requires two. Hence the bhakta deliberately refuses the absolute union so that he can enjoy the ecstasy of love.
In any case, to receive this Ananda, one has to be completely free from all other seekings, including all personal pleasures. It is an intense one-pointed love for the Divine that alone makes the human vessel fit enough to receive the vibrations of the Divine Ananda. The two, Ananda and pleasure, do not mix well. One can either seek its degraded version, pleasure, or else the pure form of Ananda.
In simple terms, it is the intense love and longing for the Divine that brings the ecstasy as a result. Here is a conversation of The Mother on the subject.
”She (goddess of delight, Ananda) has come, bringing with Her a splendor of power and love, an intensity of divine joy heretofore unknown to the Earth. The physical atmosphere has been completely changed by her descent, permeated with new and marvelous possibilities.
But if She is ever to reside and act here, She has to find at least a minimal receptivity, at least one human being with the required vital and physical qualities, a kind of super-Parsifal gifted with an innate and integral purity, yet possessing at the same time a body strong enough and poised enough to bear unwaveringly the intensity of the Ananda She brings.
Thus far, She has not found what is needed. Men remain obstinately men and do not want to or are unable to become supermen. All they can receive and express is a love at their own dimension: a human love—whereas the supreme bliss of divine Ananda eludes their perception.
At times, finding the world unready to receive Her, She contemplates withdrawing. But how cruel a loss this would be!
It is true that at present, her presence is more rhetorical than factual, since so far She has had no chance to manifest. Yet even so, She is a powerful instrument in the Work, for of all the Mother’s aspects, She holds the greatest power to transform the body. Indeed, those cells which can vibrate at the touch of the divine Joy, receive it and bear it, are cells reborn, on their way to becoming immortal.
But the vibrations of divine Bliss and those of pleasure cannot cohabit in the same vital and physical house. We must therefore TOTALLY renounce all feelings of pleasure to be ready to receive the divine Ananda. But rare are those who can renounce pleasure without thereby renouncing all active participation in life or sinking into a stern asceticism. And among those who realize that the transformation is to be wrought in active life, some pretend that pleasure is a form of Ananda gone more or less astray and legitimize their search for self-satisfaction, thereby creating a virtually insuperable obstacle to their own transformation.’
(Ref. https://incarnateword.in/agenda/01/august-25-1954#p8)
Affectionately,
Alok Da
