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Darshan with Swami Krishnananda – 1996
by Swami Krishnananda


34. Cosmic Unity

(Darshan given on May 20th, 1996)

A visitor: Do the waves of the ocean feel that they are separate from each other?

Swamiji: They cannot feel that they are separate from each other, as the right hand cannot feel that it is separate from the left hand; they are one body only. Human beings are not conscious of the ocean; therefore, they feel separate. The waves are one with the ocean. If each wave has a separate consciousness, then it will feel that it is separate; but they have no separate consciousness. It is one consciousness only.

Visitor: What about animals?

Swamiji: Animals and even insects are like human beings. They think in the same way as man thinks. They are all uniformly bound by separateness-consciousness. Even a tree can't think of unity. It is only in human beings that the idea of unity has arisen. In all lower levels, the idea of separateness, isolatedness, continues.

Only human beings can logically argue. Others cannot logically argue; they instinctively react. Humans also instinctively act, but we have also a rational capacity by which we can infer things. The consciousness of your being finite will tell you that there is something more than the finite. But animals will not think like that; finite is finite only, and the matter is closed. Only human beings have the rationality to reach the consciousness of unity. Only by meditation is it possible to reach the consciousness of unity.

In the atlas, all countries look beautiful, green and soft. Have you seen the globe of the Earth? How beautiful and attractive it looks! We like to go on looking at it, but if we actually walk on it, it's a different thing.

The world is not actually a reflection. The object is not a reflection of the Self; it is something different, which is difficult to explain. The whole world is one large mass of matter, and there are no good things and bad things. Just as in the ocean you cannot say which is good water or bad water because any place in the ocean is the same, likewise, things are uniform everywhere in the whole of creation. There is no good and bad, etc.

There are also no objects, really, just as one bucketful of water in the middle of the ocean cannot be regarded as an object taken out from the ocean. When you remove a bucket of water from the ocean and the water looks like it is contained in a bucket, it may look like an object because you have separated it from the mass. Likewise, these objects are only imagined isolated parts of the universal mass; otherwise, if you don't conceive them as isolated from the mass, they would look like one vast ocean. In the ocean, which part is beautiful and which is ugly? The very concept of beauty and ugliness is a contortion in the process of perception.

You are not seeing things properly. An object is not actually a reflection; it is wrong perception. Distorted perception makes it look like an object, when actually there are no objects. They are not objects at all; they are only projections of one mass, which we call the whole creation. We are also included in that mass, so our seeing it as something outside is uncalled for. The greatest mistake is to see it at all. A great blunder is involved in the very process of seeing; because everything is dependent on how we see it, it looks like all of life is a big mass of blunder.

A great mistake is involved in everything that we see or contact by the sense organs. A great chaos is created before us. Everything is a restlessness and a misery from moment to moment, which we want to avoid by scratching our skin now and then in the form of sense contact.

When you scratch your skin, you feel a little pleasure; every sense contact is only a scratching of the skin, which actually is not a good thing. Unless you have an itching, why should you scratch the skin? Because there is a disease, only then the pleasantness comes. Hence, the joys of life are only reactions of some illness, psychologically created by erroneous perception. So much credit for the wisdom of man!

Everything is a chaos and confusion, to get out of which is a herculean task. A few minutes of thinking rightly is not enough; it requires ages of preparation. All our activities, projects, and running about are within the realm of foolishness, finally. Within the realm of foolishness, everything looks fine. One foolish man is talking to another foolish man; both are friends, and they are doing great deeds which cannot be outside this foolishness. Building an empire in the dream world or a house on quicksand or a palace in the middle of the ocean – all these examples show in what direction we are moving.

Every minute we have to be cautious, lest we slip down and fall somewhere. They say there is a pit that may take you to hell, even at the entrance to heaven. The boat can sink, even at the other side of the river. It is not that it will sink in the middle only; it can sink at the other side also, when you are about to reach the shore. Day in and day out you have to be pondering over this. Nothing that you do is of any worth, finally. Whatever you are is of worth, so you should deeply think over what you are. If you have no value in yourself, and therefore you go outside to see beautiful things, what more comment do you want about yourself?

You cannot go to God by doing anything. You can go only by being. Any amount of doing will not take you there because doing is possible only while there is space and time, but God is not in space and time. So, anything that you do within space and time will not touch Him.

Another visitor: How is it possible to overcome space and time?

Swamiji: When there is this meditation, there is no space and time because if you bring space and time, the Atman will not be everywhere. When you say the Atman is everywhere, where is space and time? Space and time has gone inside It. Just as you have gone inside It, space and time also go inside It. They don't exist outside because the Atman is everywhere, and therefore space is covered by it. And the Atman is all times; therefore, time is also included. So there will be no space-time then.

Another visitor: What happens to the mind in Total Thought?

Swamiji: Mental forces, when they are cosmically expanded, cease to be mental forces. They will destroy themselves. When the mind thinks in a cosmic form, the mind will cease to operate, and will not exist afterwards. The mind continues to work as long as it thinks that anything is outside it. Cosmic thought is not external thought, and therefore meditations of that kind will destroy the mind itself. So through the mind you can go beyond the mind, provided you operate it in a cosmic fashion. But if you externalise it, it will not die. It will always be there.

When the mind cannot think of any external object, it cannot continue to exist. It will dissolve itself into Pure Being. The moment you think of something outside, the mind will continue to exist. Pure Being is not something outside; therefore, the mind will not operate. It will dissolve itself.

Another visitor: On the one hand, I think I have some faith; on the other hand, there is this desire for it all to be reasonable and logical. Faith and reason seem not to be able to meet.

Swamiji: Do you mean to say that reason is against faith, and faith is against reason?

Visitor: It seems to me that when I look at the world, faith in a power that is greater than us seems to be unreasonable because there is so much suffering and injustice.

Swamiji: Is suffering unreasonable? If somebody is suffering, can you say that he is unreasonably suffering?

Visitor: Yes, it is unreasonable. Why should people suffer?

Swamiji: Why should they not suffer? They will suffer because of the wrong actions that they are doing – wrong thinking and wrong deeds. Neither God nor nature are unjust.

Visitor: What about children, Swamiji?

Swamiji: There are no children in the universe. There are only cosmic forces. There are no children. Nature has no concern with human beings. It doesn't care for emperors or for the Roman Empire. It simply puts them down in one second when the curtain falls.

If a very good actor is in a drama in a theatre, do you want him to be just standing there from beginning to end or do you want the drama to be going on? So, this is the cosmic drama. It may be anybody, even the greatest man in the world, but nobody can continuously be the greatest.

The universal forces care nothing for individuals. Individuals are nothing; they do not exist at all. They are only appearances of the pressure-point of cosmic forces. You think that you are so-and-so, and I am thinking that I am so-and-so, but it is a total blunder. We are ignoramuses in the basic principles of life. We understand nothing of nature or God, though we think we are very learned and educated. So your questions have no meaning from the point of view of nature. It will laugh at you.

The body has a consciousness of a vital organism. It is not conscious of hands, fingers and so on; it is conscious of Being itself. So, the universe is operating as a whole, single, integrated organism, in which you are included. For it, there are no individuals. It is one single thing operating. But you think that you are doing the work – that you are thinking. There is no you, I, he, she, it, etc., in nature. You have to transfer your consciousness of this individual to the ocean of that force, of which you are an integral part, and think only in that fashion. If this could be done, you have understood God, nature, spirituality, everything. Otherwise, you will be unnecessarily pursuing a will o' the wisp.

This requires deep meditation. This kind of thinking should be made a part of your life; finally, it should be impossible for you to think in any other manner. Just as you now have a habit of thinking in one way, create another habit of thinking in another way. Go on hammering this idea again and again; then you will be thinking in no other way than in the manner I suggested. Things will set themselves right automatically.