Your Questions Answered

by Swami Krishnananda

Chapter 58: Living the Truth

Patrick: I want to discover what it means to live the truth.

Swamiji: When you are so clear in your mind as to what truth is, and your devotion to it is clear, why should there be so many questions? To be the truth is to live the truth. That's all. When you become the truth, you are supposed to be living the truth. So what is the problem about it? It is so clear. When the matter is clear to you, no question will arise further.

It is like asking how to be conscious that it is daytime now. Nobody will put such a question, because it is so clear. So when you are conscious that you are in truth, you have already lived the truth. That's all; the matter is closed. There is no question afterwards. Only if you have not entered it, you are still outside truth, the question arises as to how to live it.

Patrick: But is it possible for a person who has not had the experience of that which is beyond the mind to still live his life as a reflection of truth?

Swamiji: You can live conceptually, though you have not actually entered it. It is one of the stages. You can conceive it and live a mental conception of it, though you may not have actually entered it. It is a preparatory stage.

Patrick: There are many people who I feel have had the direct experience of who they are, but they are not fully established in that knowledge so they sometimes fall back to identifying with the emotions. So, they have the knowledge...

Swamiji: They cannot fall back if they have actually entered it. If the possibility of falling back is there, then they have not fully entered it. They have discovered it only conceptually, not actually.

Patrick: What do Self-realised people see?

Swamiji: Self-realised people do not see "others." The question of others does not arise. They will see one thing everywhere; the others are also included in that vision of the One. When you see the ocean, you have seen all the waters. There is no need of seeing different drops. The "other people" question will not arise, because they will be merged together with that Universal Being.

Himself, others, all will be inside that One Being so that the question of myself and yourself will not arise. The thought will be operating through the Universal Being. It won't operate through one person – neither through this person, nor that person. It will operate integrally through the Cosmic Being. That is how it works.