Darshan with Swami Krishnananda during 1996

by Swami Krishnananda

43. Total Thinking

(Darshan given on August 21st, 1996.)

Swamiji: You must be careful in thinking what is the soul of the universe. The soul is as large as the whole universe. It is not a tiny tot sitting somewhere inside. Your soul is not in one place. The entire body is charged with the soul. That's why you feel everything is I. This is me, this is me, this is me – everything is me only. Everything is me because the soul is charging every cell of my body. The whole thing is soul only. Like a wire being charged by electricity, the entire thing, every particle of wire is charged by electricity, and it becomes electricity only. So the soul of the universe is not sitting inside the universe. It is one with the universe. Unless it is one with the universe, it cannot know the universe. The thing that is totally outside the consciousness cannot be seen. There is no connecting link between them. The observer and the observed coalesce at that time, and coalesce in a very important sense because of the non-externality of that object, and so the soul is immanent and it is also non-external. It does not see something as we see. We see a wall, but the soul sees itself only. The whole cosmos is inundated by us, and we are the universe itself. We have merged into that all-comprehensive, perceptive consciousness.

We have to again be careful here. The moment we talk of perception, we think it is seeing something. That perception is not sensory perception, not even intellectual. It is being itself knowing being. The soul is being, it is not a thing. The world may look like a thing, but the soul is not a thing. Suddenly you feel like this by a force of imagination. You are rocketed up to the centre of the universe. Or, to give a more easy technique, the whole universe originated from some indescribable occurrence called the Big Bang. You feel that you are above that. You are sitting above that Big Bang, and what do you see at that time? You must be as large as what has taken place. You are not one individual looking at the whole universe. The idea of individuality and locality should be removed completely in meditation. You are not a localised individual, not even an individual at all.

Nowadays there are systems of physics which emphasise non-local existence. Things are not existing somewhere; they exist everywhere because the universe is organic. It is like a living body. So you are not looking at the universe, you are the universe. Don't go on asserting that “I am meditating” and all that. It requires a little power of will. You are not meditating on that; the meditation has gone completely. You have become being itself. Being of what? Being of whatever is. You will feel a thrill inside at that time, a kind of something entering into you as if the whole sea is entering into you, the river feeling that the whole ocean has entered into it, or the whole world melting. It has melted down completely and it has gone inside. At that time you are not sitting and beholding it, you have also got melted down. When the world melts, you also melt. And what remains is for anyone to imagine.

And then you will feel a kind of freedom, a security and a filledness of existence, and a completeness, and a fearlessness, and an utter satisfaction that you have everything and nobody can take away what you have. This feeling will arise at that time even if it is a flash for a few seconds as it passes. Right thinking, even if it is entertained for a moment, will do good. The Bhagavadgita says that even a modicum of right thinking will protect you from great sorrow. It may be a modicum of right thinking – in one flash, in a second, you thought correctly – that will take care of you because in right thinking, you have touched God because God only can think rightly. Anyone who can think rightly in a cosmic sense touches an aspect of God, so immediately you are charged with that Being even if it is for a flash of a second. That is the meaning of the sloka. Even a little attempt to move towards it is a great achievement. You have not moved far; you are just attempting to move, but that is a blessing because immediately it will come in front of you.

It is wonderful to find time to think like this and to be feeling always secure and blissful. You are always blessed and secure. No difficulty can arise. You will always feel that you are filled with something. You will always feel the whole thing is filled inside. It is not empty. It is a solid mass of inclusiveness and filledness. This is my concept of meditation.

Visitor: I think this is, in concentrated form, the concept which you expose practically in all your works. Every page, I think, every sentence, you make this point, and as a student of your books I see that written large on every page. Though it may look difficult, the central message, once you get it, you see that transparency in every word and every page, etc.

The problem, if I may take the liberty of mentioning to you, is that I am unable to put this into practice. I reflect upon it…

Swamiji: You have already put it into practice just now.

Visitor: I have been reflecting on this process as the only way of looking at things. I think it is very…

Swamiji: The only way of looking at things is to think all things at the same time. It should not be finite, partial thinking. You take into consideration everything at one stroke when you pass a judgment.

Visitor: Would it require a divine grace for you to get this ingrained in your system?

Swamiji: If divine grace has not been there, you would not even appreciate this idea. That you have the capacity to appreciate it shows…

Visitor: How do I intensify this struggle for…?

Swamiji: You must give it a little more time. Instead of getting up and going out, again you sit. You have taken lunch; don't get up and wash your hands and go away. After you have taken lunch, then sit. A few minutes is sufficient. You have taken your tea or coffee; don't run away from there. Sit. You have taken your dinner; don't get up. Sit there. Even one minute, even half a minute is sufficient to charge yourself.

It is difficult to contact untruth, but it is not difficult to contact truth. It doesn't require time because truth is timeless. It doesn't take time to contact truth, but you take years to contact untruth. Truth is your nature, so what is the difficulty in contacting it? You are contacting yourself only. It is your basic nature, and you don't require time for that. You don't require time to exist.

Visitor: Something more is to break the barrier. The reason why I persist in saying this, Swamiji, is not out of impertinence but the feeling that I think the thing you have now talked about, I think I can reproduce that word to word of what you said, intellectual talks, and I see this as the essence of Advaita and the reading of this, and I do think about it every day some time, saying, “How do I achieve something now?”

Swamiji: Is there not at any time in the day, even a few minutes, that you will not be disturbed by any other thought? Are you always busy?

Visitor: Every day this thought occurs to me, and every day I reflect upon it. This is the point I'm making. In fact, there is not a single day that at some point or the other I'm not trying to think about this. I am constantly thinking of that. But somewhere, passing into that sort of phase, as it were, so that you sort of dwell deep into it, that is not coming about. Intellectually it appears convincing.

Swamiji: The intellect has to get identified with it. You are not the intellect. You are being.

Visitor: True. Now, from that stage, the transition period now, I do understand that all that has to be done.

Swamiji: You see, when you feel that you are existing, it doesn't mean that an intellect is existing. You are something more than that.

Visitor: I think I have not communicated properly. I have understood. I think that you need to think in terms of oneness, you need to think in terms of raising the relationship between subject-object, etc., and you need to think of yourself being the whole thing. All that I do understand logically. Though people say it is through spiritual flights that one arrives at this, I think it is very logical to come to that conclusion. From one step to another step, it does lead to that necessarily because if you believe in a higher principle, everything else of what you said I think should necessarily follow from that principle. That part I know. But to erase the differences that one normally sees in things, you need something more.

Swamiji: What you see will become part of that which you are contemplating.

Visitor: How? What do I do? That is the reason why I am…

Swamiji: That which you are contemplating on includes that which you are thinking as some existing object. Even your office is inside it.

Visitor: True. I realise that. Intellectually I said very convincingly, logically I believe it. What do I do to make it further…?

Swamiji: Your feeling should accept it, not merely your intellect.

Visitor: So what do I do to make that feeling accept this so that it will…?

Swamiji: You will treat everything as you are treating yourself. You will apply a law to anything in the world as you would apply…

Visitor: Something more I should do. That is the missing link and why I remain incomplete in the sense I am unable to get into that zone yet. Something is…

Swamiji: If you give a little time, you will go into it. You are not able to find time for it. You think for a few minutes, and then you go away for some other work. It needs a little more time. Though you may be sitting for five minutes, it must be done several times. Even in the office, put the pen down – what is there? You need not go on writing throughout. For one minute you put the pen down, take a breath, then start the work.

Another visitor: I do yoga, Swamiji, in the morning every day, and then I do meditation for five minutes. After that I feel much better. In the evenings also I do it with my father sometimes.

Swamiji: You feel secure.

Visitor: Yes, very much.

First visitor: I feel secure, but there is a higher principle.

Swamiji: You are always under the protection of something.

Visitor: So therefore, that feeling is there. I know that there is something higher, and therefore, I feel secure, and this is not disheartening. That much, I don't believe I have any…

Swamiji: If you are friendly with the security forces, they will protect you.

Visitor: That part I must honestly admit to. I feel totally secure, and I believe, I think it is something more than believe, that there is a higher principle.

Swamiji: You see, throughout your career in this world you would have noticed you have received abundant blessing at every level of your life, if you carefully go through it.

Visitor: I am very conscious of this. I am very conscious of the divine grace.

Swamiji: At every level of your life, you have received blessing.

Visitor: The only thing is, how do I elevate myself further up? This is the only question that remains. I know that there is a divine grace, there is Guru's grace, there is grace of the… Therefore, what do I do further? I know that the divine grace is flowing through me and, therefore, whatever little I am able to do is on account of that. On that absolutely I have no… That brings me back to you, Swamiji. But there is something which I have still to do, and that is why my yearning to come to you and sit with you longer, spend more time with you, so that something…

Swamiji: If you are at it sincerely, it will come to you certainly. It is the only thing that will come to you quickly, and even a brother cannot come to you so quickly as this. Even your brother is far away, but this is not far away. It simply wants a summon, and it is there.

Visitor: I feel greatly reassured by these sessions, Swamiji. I do feel very close to the higher principle when I am with you.

Swamiji: This requires a little meditation. You have to find time to be yourself, and not always something other than what you are.