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Your Questions Answered
by Swami Krishnananda


Chapter 26: The Last Thought

Mila (Venezuela): I thought that the last thought is the most important thought. I was told now that it is not like that – it is not important. The last thought is not like as if you think of a deer and you will become a deer-that it is not like that.

Swamiji: If you think a deer, you will become a deer.

Mila: But, I was told that it is not like that, that the last thought is not important. So, how is it?

Swamiji: The last thought is the force exerted by all the thoughts that you entertained throughout your early life. It is like the fruit of the tree of your life.

Mila: But, how does the thought of the deer come?

Swamiji: The deer comes if you have got attachment. If you have got a little kid in your house and you are always taking care of it, and every day you are thinking of it, that is it. You are doing meditation and prayer; that is all right, but you are looking at the kid, also. A little small rabbit, or something you have, and you go on thinking it, and it will come in the last moment. It will come – whatever be the meditation you are doing, it will have no effect, if you have attachment to the kid. That kid-thought will never leave you, because your emotion is in the kid, and your emotion is not in the meditation. Your intellect is working in meditation, and emotion in the kid only. So, the kid will come, and that is the danger. Your love for God should be emotionally charged, not just intellectually accepted. For a child, our connection is emotional, so the emotional thing only will come at the last moment. The whole day, what are you thinking, from morning to night? Tell me the answer.

Mila: Well, to see the consciousness in everything – in the trees, in the stones.

Swamiji: All right. Do you think anything else also, in the mind?

Mila: I hope not to think other things, because they say that even on the door of heaven, you can fall down. What is the course that we can take in the last moment?

Swamiji: If day and night you are thinking this only, as you mentioned, and you cannot forget it at any time, under any circumstances – morning, evening, when you go to bed and sleep, when talking, wherever you are, at whatever condition, you have got only this thought – it will come at the time of ending. But in your heart you must feel. Where is your heart? Where have you kept your heart? That will come in the end.

If you have a secret affection for something which you are not telling anybody, that will come with great force at the end, and that only will work. But, if it is not so – emotionally, also – and you are thinking only this great wonderful thing, you do not want anything in the world, you have no friends, you have nothing, you are concerned only with the Supreme Being and He is everything for you, and all day and night you are thinking That only – then, in that case, the last thought will be That only. Whatever your emotion says, that will be the last thought. So, this is your question?

Mila: This is just because they were telling me that Swami Chidananda said that the last thought is not important. I was thinking that the Bhagavad Gita says that the last thought is important, so I wanted to ask you.

Swamiji: How can the last thought be something different from what you have been thinking your whole life? It will be the same thought. Why should the last thought be different? The last thought is the cream of all thoughts.

Mila: Some distraction may come.

Swamiji: No, it cannot come, because the last thought is the strongest thought. There is no distraction. How can it? Unless your mind is thinking very strongly about something – you have a property, a legacy, a bank balance; "if I die who will take all this property" – some people think like that, then is the trouble. They may be meditating and praying to God; everything they are doing. But, there is a fear: "When I die, who will take my property?" That thought will come at the end, it is a property thought preponderating.

But, if you say, "Let the property go to hell. I do not bother; I have done my duty. Let anybody take it. I will do charity, finish everything, and stand alone to myself and God. I have got nobody except myself and God. I am standing before Him. Always I am standing before Him, day and night. I am looking at Him, and He is looking at me." If this thought is there, you will have no problem. Think over the matter.

Mila: And, what are the future obstacles? We can achieve indirect knowledge.

Swamiji: Every day you are praying and meditating. Is it not? And, what obstacles are coming?

Mila: No, you say that there are three kinds of obstacles: the past, the present, and the future.

Swamiji: But, are they coming to you in meditation?

Mila: No, but I was thinking, what are the future ones? How can I make future obstacles? I can understand the past and the present, but I cannot understand the future obstacles. What can I do in the future?

Swamiji: The future obstacle is that desire which you want to fulfil, but you cannot fulfil in this life. Due to some trouble, your desire you cannot fulfil in this life, and that will be the future trouble. But, if you have no desire which cannot be fulfilled, and everything has been fulfilled, you have now a clean slate, then there is no future problem. The future will not trouble you.

Mila: Thank you very much.