Darshan of Swami Krishnananda in 1998

by Swami Krishnananda

34. Meditation Means Right Living

(Darshan given in October 1998)

Swamiji [to a visitor]: Meditation means right living. But you must know what is the meaning of right living. Everybody is living, and what is the difference between living like anybody in the world and right living?

So many people – millions and millions of people – are living in the world, but that cannot be called right living. Everybody is living a wrong life; therefore, their mind is upset. Life is nothing but life in the mind. If the mind is not working, there is no life. So whenever you say “I want to do this, I want to do that,” it is the mind that is saying that. But the mind is not adjusted properly to nature, as you said just now.

Why nature? The mind of one person cannot be easily adjusted to another person's mind. You cannot think like the mind of another person. You are two different people. You understand what I am saying? Two people cannot think the same thought. It is not possible because there is a strong individuality in each person. You cannot behave like another person. They cannot behave like you, because you have got so much attachment to your way of thinking through the body. Everybody thinks that we are the body only. Nobody believes that there is a mind. Many people use the words 'my mind', as if the mind is a property of somebody. Now, if the mind is not yourself, then what are you? Are you only the body? 'My mind.' Who is saying this? Who is speaking like this? Can the body speak 'my mind'?

There are only two things: The mind is there, the body is there. Now when it says “my mind”, who is speaking? The mind cannot say 'my mind'. Then who else is there? Only the body is there. The body also cannot say 'my mind' because the body has no consciousness. So there is a confusion in the beginning itself. Simply we say whatever we like, by habit.

So the adjustment of the mind, which is called proper living, is, first of all, an adjustment of the mind with the body itself. You must be able to live in your body. Your nearest friend is this body only. Then it will cooperate with you to do other things.

In this world there are four things. The whole world is made up of four things. One is your own self as an individual person. Number two is other people, which you call human society. The third thing is nature. The sun, moon, stars, mountains, rivers, everything, they all constitute what you call nature. So there is you yourself, other people, and nature. Then, finally, there is the Creator of the universe. Everywhere you will find only these four things working, if you analyse properly. I started by saying that living means living properly, rightly. Now I am just giving a description of what right living is.

'Right living' means living in such a way that you do not come in conflict with somebody else, do not come in conflict with nature, do not come in conflict with God, and you should not be in conflict with your own self also. That conflict inside is called nonalignment of personality. In the Western world, this word is very popular. The psyche should be properly aligned. You should not curse yourself or cry, weep. The feeling says, “No I don't want. I don't like anybody.” Even very learned people – intellectuals, professors, scientists and geniuses – may not be happy because the happiness is in the feelings. So there is a conflict between feeling and understanding.

The personal life of a person should agree with what the person understands. Your learning may be very high, but your feelings are very grieved. Individually you are not a happy person. A highly learned professor in a university may be living a miserable life in the house because he has a conflict with his own wife. So what is the good of the university speaking? This is not a balanced life. He is living a miserable life.

Two people cannot agree with each other. Then what is the good of this meditation on God? For that purpose you must understand it is necessary to know the whole structure of the universe. Where is this universe? Where is this world? You believe there is a world? Where is the world? Are you seeing it? Are you seeing the world, or are you not seeing the world? You are not able to tell me anything. We speak so much about the world, but where is the world? You are seeing people. Do you call them the world? You see mountains and rivers. Do you call them the world? Do you call the sun and moon and stars as the world? So who is the world, then? We are talking so much about the world. The world is good, the world is bad, the world is wretched; so many things we say. But where is the world? You cannot even say where the world is. If you cannot know where the world is, you cannot know where you are sitting also. The whole thing is a chaos.

Deliberately people make themselves unhappy. Nothing is clear. Modern logic and education are useless things. They do not go into the depths of the problems of life. People study in universities only to get a job, and why do they want a job? For salary. Why do they want salary? This is a very difficult subject. Why do you want a salary? It is good to have more salary. Why? Again another problem is before you. You have got millions and millions. What do you do with that? You eat. Do you eat dollars every day? Then what do you eat? You eat a little bit of food. For that you want so much of dollars.

We don't know our own selves, we don't know other people, we don't know whether the world is there or not. Where is the world? You are not able to answer me. You are seeing only people, and you are seeing mountains and rivers. Can you call them the world? Very serious subject this is. Do you understand what I am speaking? I am speaking something very subtle and very secret. We create our own problems by misunderstanding and not giving sufficient time to think about our own selves. From where we have come, we don't know. We have come from somewhere, but from where we have come? From the tree or something? That also nobody knows.

We don't want to answer all these questions because it is very mystifying and frightening. Certain things are not uttered at all. We don't know from where we have come, and where will we go one day. One day we will go, isn't it? But where will we go? What is the use of living in the world when fundamental questions cannot be answered? If I don't know from where I have come, I don't know where I will go, then what is the use of simply going on saying something unnecessarily, and travelling all over to places, going to the market, purchasing things? For what good? The fundamental question cannot be answered. Like fools people run about because the misery of life is so much that they cannot tolerate it. To forget this misery, they run about – go here, there, and make global tours because when they are travelling, they forget the misery of life. A dog is very unhappy, so to avoid that unhappiness it runs here and there. A dog will never sit – always running here and there. It is a very miserable creature. So if you want to forget your sorrow, go on running about here and there, go to the other side, this side, Lakshmanjhula, Delhi, everywhere. By that time you forget your day's sorrow. This is the kind of life people are living.

The world itself cannot be understood. The sun cannot be called the world, the moon cannot be called the world, the mountain is not the world, the stars are not the world, you are not the world, and they are not the world. Then where is the world? It is a kind of psychological confusion. The world is nothing but a psychological confusion. It is you yourself. The world is nothing but people like you, all things put together.

Who are you? Suppose I put a question to you. You cannot say what you are. You have got a nose, you have got eyes, you have got a head, you have got ears, you have got hands, you have got feet. So are you a bundle of all these little things? You cannot say who you are. “I am nose, plus eyes, plus head, plus ears, plus hands and plus feet.” Can you say like that? Not only do they go together, they go in a very consistent, systematised, organic, conscious way. You cannot say that the sun is the world and a mountain is the world, and all that. That is like saying, “My eye is myself and my nose is myself.” As you just rightly said, a systematic, organised, conscious existence is yourself. The same analogy will be applied to the whole perceptional world. The sun, moon, stars, they are not the world. They are all organised into a complete whole, and there is an intelligence inside it, just as you have an intelligence. You cannot say who you are. Neither you are inside nor outside, nor are you somewhere. Nobody knows anything. So is the case with the world.

You are not merely a conglomeration of physical limbs, nor are you outside them. They are you, and yet you are not merely the limbs. There are two kinds of wholes. One is a living whole, like yourself. Another is a mechanical whole, like a machine, like a motor car or a robot; they have no brain, no consciousness, so that is called mechanical whole. A large heap of stones on the road you can call a whole, but it is a lifeless whole. One stone is not conscious of the other stone. But here, every part of the body is conscious. Likewise, there is a total consciousness in the whole universe, outside which, you cannot exist, and you cannot even exist as a human being or as a mind or a body without being integrally, vitally, inextricably connected with the entire structure of space, time, and all things. So you are a world person. You are not coming from Belgium. This idea also must go. Just as you cannot say from where you have come, your idea that you are coming from Belgium is also not correct ultimately, from the point of view of peace of mind. You are a total whole.

This is a holistic way of thinking. 'Holistic' means thinking everything simultaneously. You belong to everything that looks outside, and what appears to be outside belongs to you, so there is no question of belonging at all. The two things do not exist apart. You do not belong to anything because anything also does not belong to you. Actually, the concept of property is a misnomer. Nobody can own property. You can only be the property yourself. Whatever you are, that is the property. Anything other than you is not a property; but if you believe that the whole universe is you only, then that is your property.

This is to say, briefly, the way in which God thinks. God has no friends, God has no brother, sister, no relation, no husband, wife, nothing. He is. If you can think like this, as a total conscious being inclusive of everything, leaving nothing outside you, that is meditation. Today I will speak only this much. I will see you again tomorrow. Dhanyavad.