Sessions with Ashram Residents

by Swami Krishnananda

Session 33: The Method of Becoming

You will get only yourself. You cannot get another person. And wherever you are, that also is you only, so it will come to you. If you are another person, that person will come to you, but if the other person is the other person only, then you have no connection with that person. Even food cannot be digested if the food is not part of you. The food will be thrown out; the stomach will throw it out because it is not yours. You have not taken it with love and affection. The food that you take is a worship that you are doing.

Life is very short. Even if you are a young boy, you should not think you will live a hundred years. People don't die because they are old. Any time God will take you, there is no doubt about it; but do you really believe that He will take you? What is wrong with your mind? Can you not think, at least? God wants only your mind. He doesn't want anything else that you offer Him, because it does not belong to you. He wants you.

Sit quietly, and mentally do puja. There are varieties of gestures that the pujari makes. Do all the gestures mentally, and invite God. If you say “Come on”, He will come. Then really He will come. It is easier to call God than to call even a dog. A dog will also come if you call it, but God is quicker than that because He is inseparable from you. Think: “All my limbs are His limbs.” Then your whole body becomes sacred. A person whose body has become sacred is a saint. A saint is not made of gold and silver. He is like anybody else, but his very personality has become sacred because he has invoked the most sacred of all beings into himself. It is the mind that makes a person a saint, not any kind of action that he does. You need not do anything but simply sit. You will become a saint. Try to do this avahana every day. To invoke God, you don't require anything. You neither want flowers, nor incense, nor camphor. Nothing is necessary. You can have the camphor in the mind only.

Now I have told you the method of becoming. Your whole body should tremble with the feeling that God has entered you. If the sun enters you, what will you feel at that time? Just think God. It is a terrible thing. That fierce radiance is highly purifying. When Suryanarayana Bhagavan has entered you, what will happen to you, tell me? What will happen? You cannot exist afterwards. You cannot exist. Your whole body simply shakes. When a power greater than you enters, your body cannot tolerate it. That is why saints dance. You hear of people dancing, such as Sitaram dancing, Mirabhai dancing. Why are they dancing? They are not mad people. A power greater than them has entered them. It is like a high-voltage power shining through a bulb of low voltage, and it will simply fuse. One cannot contain that shakti higher than one's own self, so trembling takes place. That trembling is not a disease, it is a purifying process. Some energy has entered the body.

Every day, sit in your room and do this puja. Close your eyes. Sahasraśīrṣā puruṣaḥ sahasrākśaḥ sahasrapāt (P.S. 1). Sarvataḥ-pāṇipādaṁ tat sarvato'kṣiśiromukham, sarvataḥśrutimal loke sarvam āvṛtya tiṣṭhati (B.G. 13.13). Invoke it into yourself. Do this every day for half an hour, one hour. This is meditation, this is puja, this is worship, this is avahana, this is kriya, whatever you call it. It includes bhakti, karma, jnana, everything. In one thing, everything is there. Everybody should do this every day. When you get up in the morning or evening, or whenever it is possible, do this avahana into yourself, and be sure you will reach that Supreme Being. Yaṁ yaṁ vāpi smaran bhāvaṁ tyajatyante kalevaram, taṁ tam evaiti kaunteya sadā tadbhāvabhāvitaḥ (B.G. 8.6): Whatever you have been thinking in your mind, to that you will go.

Everybody should keep a note: “What was I thinking the whole day yesterday?” Write it down. “I made a mistake. I was thinking stupid things. Today I will not think like that. Since morning, what was I thinking?” Every day make a note in a spiritual diary. If you are sure that the whole day you have been thinking only that which you would like to become, then you will become it. But if you have been thinking that which you would not like to become, then rebirth will take place and you will be taken to that place, to that thing, which you have wrongly been contemplating by distracting your mind. This is a simple secret. What do you want to become? It is all a simple matter. You know what you want to become, and you will become that, but you should think only that. If you want to become an elephant, then feel: “I am an elephant. An elephant is sitting here. A very powerful elephant is sitting here. An elephant is sitting, an elephant is sitting, an elephant is sitting!” and you will become the elephant. Baleṣu hasti balādīni (Y.S. 3.25). Patanjali mentions in one of his sutras that you will get the elephant's strength if you think: elephant's strength, elephant's strength, elephant's strength, elephant's strength. Go on thinking that. You can think anything. You can think Rama, Krishna, Devi, Bhagavati, anything, and that energy will enter into you. Whatever you want to become, you will become. You can say “I want nirguna only”, and then you will become nirguna. First of all, find out what is the meaning of nirguna. Don't make mistakes in thinking. Unnecessary thoughts should not enter the mind. These are all pundit's jargons, as they are called. There is no nirguna; there is no saguna. They don't exist.

[To an ashramite] Are you a nirguna man or a saguna man? What are you? You want something other than what you are. No, that is not possible. Don't believe these pundits who unnecessarily argue that God is neither nirguna nor saguna. Or, you may say God is either. Inside a block of stone there is a statue. Is there a statue inside a block of stone? No. But there is a statue, because you can simply carve anything out of it. This is nirguna. That block of stone is nirguna. Nothing is there inside it, but you can carve it in any way you want. You can carve a tiger, you can carve an elephant, you can carve a god, you can carve a devil; anything can come out of it. This is an example of nirguna and saguna. There is nothing in nirguna, but everything is there, so you should not think that nirguna is without qualities. It is all the qualities. Nirguna does not mean without quality, but having every quality. Therefore, it looks like no quality. Do you understand me? Every quality is there in one thing; therefore, it looks like no quality. A block of stone has no statue in it, but every statue is in it. An ink pot has no picture in it, but you can draw any picture with the ink. You need only a brush and paper. Now, is there any picture there? But you can create anything. A nirguna ink pot becomes a saguna picture. Everything is divine if you understand it properly. Everything is divine.