Sessions with Ashram Residents

by Swami Krishnananda

Session 29: Liberation in the Eternal Being

Swamiji: Liberation is Absolute. Do you go alone to the Absolute or do you carry the whole world with you? Be careful in answering. Does the whole world come with you, or are you going alone, as Mr. so-and-so?

An ashramite: There is no world.

Swamiji: Why are you saying that? You can see the world. If there is no world, why do you want freedom from it? Everybody says, “I am going alone.” They do not say, “I am taking my family.”

Ashramite: There is no isolation in this world also.

Swamiji: Why is there not? I am seeing isolation. You should not carry your present logic to that upper state. Everybody says, “I am going.” Nobody says, “The whole world is going.” Why does this 'I' come? “I don't want anything. I have left everything. I am going to God.” Do people not talk like that? Or, “No. I will take the whole world with me.” Does anybody say that?

Ashramite: The individual feels isolated from the world.

Swamiji: It is isolated. Otherwise, why does he say he wants liberation? Answer this question. People don't want liberation. There are some doctrines which say, “We will not attain nirvana, or liberation, until the whole world gets it.” That means to say, the world will continue even after you reach nirvana. Is it so? This is one of the doctrines of Buddhism. There are Buddhists called Avalokiteshvaras. They say they will wait for the redemption of the whole world, and then only will they go. Is it okay or not?

Ashramite: It is not possible.

Swamiji: It is a prevalent doctrine. You cannot get liberated until the whole cosmos is liberated, because you are a part of the cosmos. How will you separate yourself and go like that? This doubt will persist even in the greatest of men. Everybody says, “I want to attain God.” Nobody says, “I will carry the whole world with me.” Why don't people say “I will take the whole world with me to liberation”? What is the idea?

Ashramite: That single person is feeling sorrow for other people, so he wants them to go first.

Swamiji: Now, who is attaining liberation?

Ashramite: That person is attaining it.

Swamiji: There is no person there. Who goes to liberation?

Ashramite: Nobody goes, because there is nobody to go.

Swamiji: How do you answer this great point that Avalokiteshvaras, etc., have refused to enter nirvana and are waiting for the redemption of the whole world? Are they all foolish people?

Ashramite: They are not foolish people.

Swamiji: Their understanding is poor, you are saying.

Ashramite: Yes, Swamiji, it is below nirvana only.

Swamiji: Now Buddhists will get angry with you. “You are a selfish man,” they will say. If this confusion is not there, people will not say at the time of dying, “I am leaving everything and going.” What are they leaving? This is a very serious matter. You should not cut jokes with it. Your meditations will depend upon your clarity on this matter. Lastly, like a bombshell, the doubt will come. The whole chaos will be in front of you because now itself you are arguing whether it is this way or that way, and no answer is coming. If the answer doesn't come now, how will the answer come afterwards?

If you attain liberation, where are you sitting? Are you sitting inside the Absolute? Tell me. Are you going inside the chamber of the Absolute? Where are you?

Ashramite: Omnipresent.

Swamiji: You become omnipresent. Omnipresent means you are inside the world also?

Ashramite: Yes, everywhere.

Swamiji: Then what is the problem of world? Then you will not see the world there, so what are you liberating? What is the Avalokiteshvara liberating? If you say you are becoming omnipresent when you attain the Absolute, then you have also entered the world because the world is inside the Absolute.

Ashramite: There is no world there then.

Swamiji: Then why are you saying that you will wait until the liberation of the world? You cannot answer this question until you are clear in your mind.

Why I am saying all this is, this will persist in advanced stages of meditation. Now these questions will not arise. Everything looks simple. “I have detached from everything, and I am simply liberating myself with the all-pervading God.” It is very simple, easy to say, but it is not like that. It is something else.

The whole thing hinges upon the relationship between you and the world. In what way are you connected with the world? Are you a citizen of the world, enjoying the facilities of nature? Are you inside the world, or are you not inside the world? Let anybody answer this question. Everybody says, “Yes, I am in the world.” But are you in the world? If you are in the world, then the world has no connection with you. It is like water in a bucket. The bucket is different from the water.

Ashramite: I am the world as long as I see the world.

Swamiji: Who will say like that? Which person will talk like that?

Ashramite: The world doesn't exist.

Swamiji: This is a very serious thing, very serious. Great sages have toppled down. You are not in the world; you are also not outside the world. When all the constituents of the world are the building bricks of your own personality, how could you say that you are inside or outside?

There is a big building here. What is it made of? It is made up of steel, cement, bricks. Are the steel, cement and bricks inside the house or are they outside the house? Suppose the steel starts thinking, “I am inside this house.” The house does not exist minus these things. These components of the house are themselves the house. So do you understand me now?

Ashramite: Yes.

Swamiji: So you cannot say the material which formed the building is inside the house, nor can you say is it outside the house. It is the house. All the five elements form this body, and even the mind itself. Then in that case, what is the relationship between you and the five elements of the cosmos? It is the same as the iron bar and the house. What do you say? Are you inside the world or outside the world?

Ashramite: The mind itself is the world.

Swamiji: There is no mind there. I am saying 'you'. Why are you bringing another word? If the iron bar is the same as the building, you yourself are the world. Is there anybody in this world who will talk like that? Is there anybody who will assert this kind of thing? Is a person who asserts like that a madman or a sane man? If you go on saying on the street “I am the whole world”, they will put you behind bars. Our troublemaker is inside us only.

Every day you must meditate like this. When you are in the state of dream, you see a huge world. You may be a king who is ruling over the whole kingdom. You have ministers and army and police and what not—vast riches. Is this experience of dream real or unreal? It is real when you experience it. When you wake up, where are these army, police, land, property and all the paraphernalia that the king had? Are they still inside the dream or have they gone, completely vanished? They cannot vanish because they are real when they are experienced. Otherwise, it will mean you are getting up independently. “I have got up from that vast world of experience outside, and all the people are suffering there while I alone am waking up. No, I will not wake up. I will wake up only when everybody wakes up.” Will you say like that? Then only a selfish man will wake up from dream because when you wake up from dream all the people are still there, and you alone are waking up. This is exactly the answer to your question. Does anybody do this analysis in the Ashram?

Ashramite: We never thought of that.

Swamiji: Even the idea will not arise in the mind. Am I talking sense, or is it meaningless?

Ashramite: Very deep, Swamiji.

Swamiji: Why are people not thinking like this in the Ashram? Why should I alone think like this? Others also must think this way.

Ashramite: There is no provocation to think like that.

Swamiji: Provocation? Who gave you the provocation to talk like that? Whatever prompted me to speak in this manner will have to prompt you to also think like this, because there is no special person in the world. I am not a special person. If I am able to contemplate things like this, everybody can also do it. This is the highest sadhana you can think of. All the knots will break, and you will attain liberation.

“It will be very difficult. I have to take many births.” There are some statements like that even in the scriptures. Thousands and thousands of births you have to take and then purify yourself by expiation, etc., and only then is it perhaps possible to attain liberation. So this frightens us.

There were two people, a farmer and a gardener. They saw Narada, the sage, passing that way.

They asked him, “Maharaj, where are you going?”

“I am going to Vaikuntha to see Vishnu, Narayana.”

“I see. Then you please ask him when we are going to be liberated.”

“I will ask him,” Narada said.

When Narada returned, they both asked him, “What is the answer?”

Narada replied to the farmer, “You will take ten more births.”

The farmer cursed himself. “So much japa I am doing, so much Narayana japa. After all, this is the result of it?”

The gardener asked, “What is the answer for me?”

“You will take as many births as leaves on this tree in order to attain liberation,” replied Narada.

“Oh, so I am fit!” exclaimed the gardener. He immediately attained liberation because his conviction that he is fit broke all bondage, whereas that other man was crying, “Oh, so much japa, and it has no effect!”

You should not consider meditation as some activity in the Ashram: “So many works we are doing. We also sit for meditation in the Samadhi Shrine.” Meditation is not a department of The Divine Life Society, or of anywhere. It is yourself. Do you consider yourself as a department of somebody? It is a serious matter. Day and night you must absorb yourself in it. If this determination sinks into your feelings, and day and night you are not going to leave this subject, you may not take even one more birth. How many years do you take to wake up from a dream? How many years?

Ashramite: Instantaneous.

Swamiji: This is exactly like that. Liberation is not tomorrow. To the extent of the intensity that shook up the dream, causing waking, to the same extent is the time it takes for liberation. There must be a shaking up in your relationship with the whole creation in the same way as when you woke up from dream there was a sudden shake-up of mental activity that kicked you up. A tiger might have pounced on you in dream, and you woke up. How could waking, which is real, be effected by a tiger, which is unreal? Can the real be created by the unreal? Therefore, they say the Guru is like a tiger. The tiger is not there, but he will pounce on you in such a way that this dream will vanish completely.

You must be very serious, very serious. Whether you are eating or sleeping, meeting people or working, going to the bazaar or travelling, this terrible thing should be in your mind always. You think that you shall go and do some work somewhere and then come back and sit for meditation, but there may be no coming back afterwards. You may not come back, so what is the good of saying that you will do it afterwards?

This kind of contemplation is a timeless activity, so it is not possible in the process of time. It is a centralisation of consciousness; it is an ideal that is beyond time itself, and also beyond space. That force which can centralise itself beyond the concept of space and time is operating within you. That is called eternity. The eternal in you gives you hope. That hope has driven you to an ashram like this, or to a pilgrimage centre or to a temple. It tells you that you have hope. Nobody ever thinks that there is no hope at all. Even a prisoner hopes that he will be liberated one day, freed, whatever the length be of the imprisonment.

The bondage is created by the feeling of the impossibility of attaining liberation. That is the bondage. Feeling that it is not possible for you is the bondage. The land and property, husband, wife and children are not the bondage. You have a feeling that this kind of thinking is not possible, and that this kind of meditation is also not possible. “I am not for it. I am a helpless person. I have a great many problems.” These thoughts are the bondage. Don't say that somebody is creating bondage for you. You have decided that you are unfit for it. If you have already decided that you are unfit, who will make you fit afterwards? If you have accepted that you are a poverty-stricken person, then you will be like that only. But you should determine: “I am not in space or in time. If I had actually been in space and in time, I would not have had the aspiration to attain freedom.” Space and time will not allow you to think that which is above space and time.

Now, how does this idea of liberation in the Eternal Being arise in the mind of a person who is otherwise bound by space and time? There is some element in us which is non-spatial and non-temporal, and that is speaking. People say it is God speaking. Okay, whatever it is. We are spatially mortal beings, but when we know we are non-spatially immortal, then we are assured that it is possible, like that gardener crying, “After all, it is possible! I am fit!” You go on doing this japa: “I am fit. I shall get it!” That is what seems to be the meaning behind the great statement of Jesus Christ: “Ask and it shall be given.”

But who will ask? Only that which expects liberation should ask. The tongue does not attain liberation; the mind does not attain liberation. It is the eternity in us that attains liberation. So when it is said “Ask and it shall be given”, the eternity within us should ask, and eternity will respond from outside. The internal location of eternity, which is the aspirant, will receive a response from the all-pervading eternity outside: tat tvam asi. Tat tvam asi means this eternity is the same as that eternity. It is not that they are two things. “You are that person”—it is not like that. The eternity within is the same as the eternity without. As Vedantic philosophers say, the space outside a tumbler is the same as the space inside it. If the space inside a tumbler wants liberation, what should it think? It should give up the idea that it is inside the tumbler, because space cannot be contained within a tumbler. It is not possible. It is an apparent limitation imposed upon it, which is something well known to us.

Tat chintanaṁ tat kathanaṁ anyonyaṁ tat prabodhanam, eta deka paratvaṁ ca brahmābhyāsaṁ vidur budhāḥ (Pan. 7.106): The practice of the presence of the Absolute consists in thinking only that, only that, only that. “My dear child, you have gone!” cries the mother. “I had only one little child, which I got by the grace of God. My dear child, where have you gone?” The mother has no other thought except that. She will not eat, she will not talk, she will not do anything. What is she thinking? “My dear child, where have you gone?” Will any other thought enter the mind of that mother? So very dear it is. So is the case with anything which you consider as very dear and near. If you lose it, immediately your heart breaks.

Tat chintanaṁ: thinking only that. There are expert dancers, danseuse. In India especially they are prevalent. They carry a pot filled with water on their heads, and with that pot of water which can fall down at any time by any shaking of the head, the danseuse stretches her hands and circles around and goes here and there. Every kind of gesture is made, but what does she think in the mind? She thinks that there is a pot on the head. If she thinks only of the gestures, the whole thing falls. This is one example. Whatever be your activity, this memory of that central thing cannot go because it is like a Damocles sword; you cannot forget it. Or, there is a person who has lost millions of dollars in the stock market. He has become a poor, wretched person. What will he be thinking the whole day? He will not eat; he will not talk. He doesn't want anything like that. He is thinking one thought, the same thing, same thing, same thing.

Tat kathanaṁ: If a person has lost all his millions, he will go on telling everybody, “I have lost everything. I have lost everything. I have lost everything.” He will go on telling in the marketplace, “I have lost everything.” Like that you tell all people, everybody. You are sitting in satsanga, you have got a study circle, you are colleagues sitting together and discussing. The same thing you go on discussing: “What is your experience? I was meditating yesterday. There was an obstacle.” Students in a classroom discussing subjects of mathematics, etc., say, “What are the problems that will come in the exam tomorrow? We will compare, contrast.” Like that, you sit together and discuss. “How are you meditating? What is the experience? What obstacle are you having? Tell me.” And he will tell you his obstacles, and you will tell him yours. You all join together like students in a classroom and collate all the ideas you have got. This is called satsanga. This is tat kathanaṁ: talking only of that, discussing only that.

Anyonyaṁ tat prabodhanam: awakening each person among yourselves. “What do you say? How far? What is your progress?” You can ask such questions only to your colleagues. You cannot ask everybody on the road. You must have a friendly atmosphere where kindred spirits sit together and discuss and exchange ideas.

Eta deka paratvaṁ ca brahmābhyāsaṁ vidur budhāḥ. This is called the practice of the presence of the Absolute, Brahman. Eta deka: only that, only that, only that. Now, 'only that' means it is not somewhere outside you. Again the idea of external things will arise. 'That' is 'thou'.

In modern science there is a problem of bringing together the relativity theory and the quantum theory. There are some contradictions because relativity concerns itself with the cosmic operations of space, time and cause, and quantum concerns itself with subatomic particles. What is the connection? Einstein, who was wedded to this concept of the cosmic operation of space, time and cause, would not easily accept the findings of quantum because it contradicts his theory of relativity. He became very annoyed when quantum physicists said minute particles are pervading the whole cosmos so that the whole universe is one only. Einstein rejected that completely. The propagator of quantum theory is said to be David Bohm, and Einstein was opposed to it because, according to the quantum theory, there is no distance; space does not exist at all. Everything is only energy. But if that is so, then what is the use of relativity—space, time, cause?

There was a long argument between David Bohm and Einstein, and Einstein asked knotty questions which David Bohm could not easily answer. Then Bohm felt, “My theory stands good, so how am I feeling defeated by Einstein?” He went on thinking, brooding the whole night, and he found the answer. The next morning he told Einstein, “I have found the answer. Here is the answer which defeats your theory.”

Einstein could not say anything against it. He said, “It seems to be very reasonable. I accept what you say, but I don't like it.” [Laughter]

It is very interesting to read this. It is called the Einstein-Bohm controversy. If you talk like this, others cannot understand what you speak. That is the controversy between Einstein and Bohm. Nobody will understand what you are saying. If a quantum physicist speaks to you, you don't know what he is saying, what is the meaning of it. You are accustomed to only large space-time-causation activity, the theory of karma, and so on. In quantum there is no karma theory or anything, and you are not existing there. The whole thing goes in one second. This is tat tvam asi: thou art That. Space-time-causal relativity is the same as quantum mechanics, and the attempt to unify them is called the unified field theory. Some physicists are trying to bring about a unification of both, how the cosmos can identify itself with even its subtlest parts, but they have not yet succeeded. Tat has to become tvam. Tvam and tat always remain outside, and whatever you say, God is above you and you are outside. This idea cannot leave you. So tat tvam asi is very difficult. Quantum and relativity don't join, but if they join, there is a blaze of light. The whole cosmos will light up. If you sincerely want it, it will come. No qualification is necessary for attaining moksha. You go on repeating so many rules and regulations, and so on, but only one rule is necessary: I want it.

Ashramite: And eternity too, Swamiji.

Swamiji: Eternity is speaking: “I want it, that's all.” There is no other qualification necessary. If the heart says “I want it”, it is called mumukshutva. People talk of viveka, vairagya and shad sampat, but mumukshutva is the last stroke to cut the Gordian knot. “I want it, that's all. I don't want anything else. I have decided I will get it.”

Buddha sat under a bodhi tree, and all disturbances came to him. The winds started blowing. It was Mara, or Satan, as he is called. All sorts of visions Buddha had. Some were very highly attractive, some were terrible—thunderstorms, death-like blows, and so on. But he understood that these kinds of problems are all caused by the old memories of involvement in space-time. They are the Mara and the Satan, and they won't leave you like that. So he somehow collected himself and recovered. “I will sit here,” Buddha said. “Let the flesh melt and the bones break, but I will not get up until I get illumination.”

Christ was also tempted. “Why are you sitting on the mountaintop? You will get the glory of the earth. Go,” said Satan. The same thing was told to every saint and sage on earth. There were great saints in the Middle Ages called the Desert Fathers. They were living alone, with no facilities, in the deserts of North Africa. What is the use of living in a desert? The mind was craving, and they were suffering in agony inside. They had thirst and hunger, and old memories of the enjoyments in life.

These temptations of Mara or Satan are nothing but remnants of any subtle desire in you for something in the world. They are only a subtle potential of the remembrance of your desire to have as much joy in the world as possible. You have not fully enjoyed them. You have suddenly broken off the connection, and they come: “Where have you gone, foolish man? Come back!” There is no Mara, no Satan; it is you yourself. You are the binding factor, and you are the liberating factor. However, just to cut this short, this is how we have to conduct ourselves.

Many people have got many other ways. They say you are alone with God, that's all. You don't have anybody else. This is the bhakta. Devotees feel, “I have nothing around me. I am seeing only God everywhere.” Some people say all these people in the world are only manifestations of God, that He is a social worker. Some are very strong in their determination to defy space and time itself. There are as many ways of meditation as there are human beings in this world. Though we have broadly classified them into karma, bhakti, jnana and yoga, and so on, there are minute differences in the manner of the conducting of the aspirations of people, and every path, every road, leads to Rome, as they say. Whatever be the method that you are adopting, if it is connected like an internet connection to the centre, it will take you to that place. Wherever it is, it will come to you, but determined will is necessary. The whole day you must think it. But there are people who say, “I have got so much work, so much duty. I am an officer, I am a judge, I am a secretary, so how will I?” Again the same Mara is saying this. Where are these secretaries and all these people? They are inside the Absolute only. It is the Absolute doing the work. The table and desk and fountain pen, and all the law, judges and so on, is that Absolute.

Aurobindo was imprisoned by the British for conspiring against the government. He was put in prison, and hauled up before the magistrate. Directly his mind opened when he was in the court standing before the judge, with police all around. He explained this in a speech called the Uttarpara Speech, named after the place where he gave this lecture. “What did I see in the court? I saw Narayana sitting on the judicial bench. I saw Narayana as the prosecutor. I saw Narayana in the police and in all the people. I saw Narayana in the iron bars of the prison.” The whole thing dazzled. This is what you will feel. Would you like to feel like that? He had a determined will. Aurobindo's will was like steel, so adamant, and his way of expression, his writing, etc., proves what kind of thinker he was. Generally, nobody writes like this. It is a very high power of expression.

Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa Deva was a devotee of Kali, the Mother. He was so devoted that there was nothing else for him. Mother, Mother, Mother, Mother. This god ordained in such a way that a Guru came, uninvited. The Guru was called Totapuri, and he initiated Ramakrishna into a higher meditation.

“What have I to contemplate?” Ramakrishna asked.

“You can concentrate on the point between the eyebrows. Concentrate. Concentrate. What are you thinking?”

“I am seeing Mother Kali.”

“Cut off her head,” Totapuri said.

“Hey, you want me to cut off the head of my mother? No!” replied Ramakrishna.

“I am telling you, cut it off,” he said. “Cut it off, cut it off, cut it off!”

With great will Ramakrishna decided that Mother Kali is not there, and he cut it off. In a blaze of light she was gone.

If you are meditating, the same thing will happen. All your dear concepts will melt. It is difficult to melt a dear thing. It is simply part of your heart, and you are told to melt it down. If you are told to melt down the dearest thing in your heart, the most beloved, most lovable, which is impossible to get rid of, you would rather say, “Goodbye, I don't want anything. My child is my child.”

A devotee went to Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and asked, “Please teach me meditation.”

“What do you like best?” Ramakrishna asked.

“I like my granddaughter best,” he replied.

“Meditate on that,” Ramakrishna said. “Meditate on your granddaughter, but don't think anything else, only your granddaughter. There should not be anything outside. Even space should not be there. Can you think of your granddaughter like that, without any space outside? Then she ceases to be your granddaughter because there is no space there. You are also not outside. Then you cannot love her afterwards.” This concentration broke the attachment completely.

The whole thing is concentration. It is the wonder that the mind can work. The power of the mind is unthinkable.

Never condemn yourself, never criticise yourself, and be adamant: “I have everything with me.”

Sri Krishna told Duryodhana, “Do you think I am alone standing here before you? Come on. The whole world is just here. All the seven heavens are here.”

Sri Krishna said “Tut” and the whole Vishvarupa opened. Within his body the seven heavens opened. If it is within the body of Krishna, it is in the body of yourself also, so whatever you want can be here just now, here and now.