Darshan of Swami Krishnananda in 1999

by Swami Krishnananda

40. What Is Important

(Darshan given in October 1999)

Swamiji [to a visitor]: What you see with your eyes as important, it does not even exist. It is only a hallucination. But what is real is that which you brought, and what is real is what you will take back. You have come alone with your Atman, and you will go with your Atman. That is the real thing. And if you shed the body one day, where are you going? You think over this matter. You will not go to Lucknow afterwards.

These are all serious matters: “If I leave this body, where will I go?” Are you going to nowhere? This is an important matter. Nobody has any time to think of this. Are you going to live in this world eternally? We don't know anything about tomorrow. What will happen tomorrow, nobody knows. So are you not supposed to contemplate on this matter: “If I leave this body at any time, what will happen to me afterwards?” You should not simply close your eyes like this: “I don't know.” You must know it. For your benefit, you must know. Whatever is your welfare, you must know it. “I have got family, I have got everybody settled, I have got a government pension.” This is not going to pursue you. These are all temporary adjustments. For a time you are somehow or other glorying in this world. The world will vanish one day, and at that time everybody vanishes. But still something remains.

It requires proper guidance from Masters who have delved into this truth, and practised it – a great, serious matter. You should not talk too much, and should not go to many people. According to you, who is your mentor, your guide who has illumined you and will tell you what will happen to you after that? This answer must be given. You cannot say that you are not worried about it. When you are worried about this life, why are you not worried about the next life? It is not less important. It may be more important than this. And whatever you have done in this world, whatever you have thought, whatever you have expressed in your speech, that will come with you. Money, property, land, wealth, relations – they won't come. You will go with yourself.

But what will come with you? Whatever actions you have performed from the deepest heart of hearts, whatever good deeds that you have done or whatever bad deeds you have done, they will all come together, clubbed up, and then they will take you to a place where the results of these actions, good or bad, will materialise. That place you will take rebirth.

But you don't want rebirth: “I don't want to come back to this samsara again. I am fed up with it. I am feeling miserable.” If you feel like that, then close your eyes. Contemplate the whole universe as the body of the Almighty God, and you are inside it. You are not outside the world, which means to say, you are inside the whole creation of God Himself or, in a more deep way, you may say, you are even now sitting on the lap of God Himself. God is not far away. Even one inch distance is not there between you or anything. The world is made in such a way that there is no distance at all. The distance of space as created by spatial and temporal succession is an illusion in the mind.

We are deluded completely. Everybody is a foolish person finally, because they don't know their own welfare. “I don't know what will happen to me tomorrow.” What kind of person? Whatever may happen, you must be prepared for it, and whatever you have done, that will come with you. And it is up to you to find out what you have done. “I have been a government servant.” This won't cut ice. Who wants government servants? “I have got so many families well settled. There is no worry.” These are all ordinary social aspects, but there is a spiritual aspect which is ignored by everybody. Let anybody be there; everybody is settled very well, you have got a pension, all is well. But what are you? What is your worth? Your worth is not in the pension, it is not in the settled family. Nothing is there; still, you are a very important person. What is your importance? Think over this matter. I won't talk much now. I will see you another time. God bless you.