Darshan with Swami Krishnananda during 1996

by Swami Krishnananda

25. One Mind Influencing Another Mind

(Darshan given on March 23rd, 1996.)

A visitor: Yesterday you concluded the darshan by saying, “Enter into the soul of the object, and then it will do what you want.” But you never elaborated. That was the last thing you said. And what's been on my mind for some while is to what extent we can even think that we have a thought that's ours.

Swamiji: If it is not your thought, and then whose thought is it?

Visitor: That's the point that I'm wondering because…

Swamiji: Do you think that you are thinking somebody else's thought?

Visitor: Yes, I'm thinking that it's possible.

Swamiji: Then you are not in yourself. You are out of yourself.

Visitor: But you are saying we enter into the soul of the object and it will do what we want. You are implying that…

Swamiji: You are also an object only. You are also one of the objects.

Visitor: To you I'm an object.

Swamiji: No, everybody's an object when he is looked at. Anything that is visible is the object. You are also an object only. The soul is the self-assertive consciousness: I am. And everybody feels 'I am', even a tree and a mountain and a star, and every little thing. If you can conceive everything as a subject and not an object…

Now you don't think you are an object. You are always thinking you are a subject. Transfer your consciousness to another person or to anything, and enter into that consciousness, and think as that person thinks. You should not think as you are thinking. You have ceased to exist. Your consciousness has transferred to something else. That consciousness feels that it is the subject. Like that, you transfer it to anything in the world so that it is the total subject that comes up. The universal subject crops up immediately. All the objects cease because if you look at the objects, only then does the idea of an object arise. You transfer your consciousness from this, from everyone. Let all the objectivity cease by a total subjectivity, because everybody is a subject only. Nobody is an object, really speaking. I am what I am, you are what you are, everybody is what everybody is.

So in that sense, feel you are the very thing which you are thinking of. You are not thinking of any object; you are yourself the thing which you are thinking. Carry on this program of concentration with everything in the world. Whatever comes to your mind is yourself only, so that your mind is not thinking of the object. You yourself are the object, so that there is no interaction between you and another thing. The interaction ceases.

Visitor: What you're saying is you do that, and then they'll do what you want.

Swamiji: Then you will work as God works. You will not work like a human being at that time.

Visitor: My question is, if you put it in reverse, it may mean that someone else – if there is a someone else – enters into me and I do what they want.

Swamiji: That person cannot enter into you because that person becomes you only; it is not another person because one soul is not different from another soul. They are identical. One soul communes itself with another soul, and it becomes a wider soul. It is not a double soul. It is like two drops of water mixing. Two drops become one drop only.

Visitor: What I'm concerned with is, to what extent someone else can influence my thought so that what I think is my thought is not my thought; it is someone else's thought.

Swamiji: No, it is not influencing. That person's mind merges with your mind so that it becomes a larger mind, so that it's a cosmic mind. You cannot influence by merely thinking the object. That person should cease to be an object, and that consciousness should merge with you so that two consciousnesses become one consciousness only.

Visitor: You are speaking only in the most ideal sense, but what I'm thinking of is, for example, there is a book about thought forms by Annie Besant, these old Theosophical people. They say that there is thought transference. They talk about thought transference, actually a form. I as a mother think of my child…

Swamiji: This is not thought transference. This is not a psychological function. This is the soul entering the soul. It is not the mind going to the mind, it is the soul entering the soul so that there is only consciousness of one soul at that time, inclusive of all the souls in the world. It is not a multiplicity of souls.

Visitor: I understand what you're saying, but that is the highest level. I'm talking about in this waking state, does one mind influence another?

Swamiji: You cannot influence like that if you stand outside it.

Visitor: So whatever thoughts I have in my mind, I can say they are my thoughts, they're not someone else's thought impinging on my mind?

Swamiji: If you are working only on a psychological level, that influence is not possible because each one asserts his own mind, so one mind cannot become another mind. It won't succeed at all. If the two minds are different from each other, one cannot influence the other. It is not possible. There must be some empathy between the two thoughts; then only an influence is possible.

Visitor: So it is possible. Given certain things, it is possible.

Swamiji: Ordinarily it is not possible because the other person also thinks independently, so there is a clash of two purposes. They won't come together. Unless there is some common ground between the two, the union cannot take place. The common ground is the Universal Soul only. Ordinarily, it won't take place. However much you may think a tree, the tree will not know that you are thinking.

Visitor: Okay, not a tree, but another person.

Swamiji: They are all the same thing. There is no difference between a tree and the human being as far as existence is concerned.

Visitor: What is telepathy?

Swamiji: That is psychological action for a particular purpose, but meditation is not telepathy.

Visitor: No, but telepathy does exist. That's what I'm trying to understand, not the meditation side.

Swamiji: I would not like anybody to practise telepathy. It is not good because there will be mutual action and reaction. That is a mistake in psychoanalysis. The psychoanalyst himself becomes the patient afterwards, if he goes on thinking of the other person. It is not a mental operation, it is something beyond the mind. It is the cosmic mind operating that is called meditation. Otherwise, if you try to reach another person, or to influence another person through your mind, there will be a reaction from the other mind also, and then you will not be benefited by that. It should not be practised at all. What I am saying is not telecommunication; it is a merging of soul with soul. And there are no two souls; only one soul is there. Telepathy is quite different from the soul entering the soul.

Visitor: Swamiji, I'm not talking about in the meditation sense. I'm talking about in an everyday sense of other people's thoughts influencing one's thoughts.

Swamiji: No, it is not possible. They cannot influence like that because each one is totally asserting himself or herself as myself only. Each one is so very adamantly asserting one's individuality that influence is not possible. They will only act and react, and conflict will be there. It is not possible for one to influence another like that if the minds are two different things. If they are having some similarity between them, then they act and react; but if I assert myself very vehemently, you assert yourself vehemently, and then there will be no communication between the two. Even in psychoanalytic communication, the mind of the person who acts like a psychoanalyst thinks like the person whom he wants to influence. He thinks like the other person whom he wants to influence, and he assumes even the shape, form, and psychological pattern of that person; then only the influence takes place. But doing it is not a good thing because the psychoanalyst himself will get a disease afterwards. He will get the trouble. The psychoanalyst himself can become a patient.

Visitor: That can happen between people who are not psychoanalysts as well. Between just regular people that same thing can happen.

Swamiji: Yes, the same thing. It happens to anybody, whether it is a psychoanalyst or anybody else, who thinks in that manner either for benefiting a person or for harming a person. Either way, it will end in trouble to the very same person who practises it. People pass hands over sick people. That is not a good practice, though they think they are doing a great social service. That person will get some reaction from that illness.

Visitor: So is there protection that one can have against this happening to oneself?

Swamiji: Nothing will happen to you if your mind is thinking like a universal mind. You should not think like an individual thinking. There is no individual here. It is only a wave of the cosmic mind that is operating, and you are one of the waves. Nobody can influence you if you are thinking as a universal mind. If all the minds are included in that universal mind, who will influence you? Nothing is possible. The question itself ceases. There are no other people. Only one mind is there. On that you meditate.