Darshan of Swami Krishnananda – 1997

by Swami Krishnananda

10. Sadhana and Politics

(Darshan given on February 4th, 1997)

A visitor: As sadhaks, should we not also become involved in political matters?

Swamiji: You have no business to get involved. You are going out of the way by thinking wrong things. Instead of thinking the Creator of the universe, you are thinking some useless things in the world. You must ask this question to God Himself: Why did You create this world? You ask Him; let us see what answer comes. He will say: “I have never created the world, and I have not created you also.”

You must know what you want finally. Pursue that, and don't go in a wrong direction, looking around like this. Instead of looking around, look up and see what is above you. You will find the light of reason, and from there you will get the answer to every question in life.

As you do not know how big this universe is, you cannot know how it is working also. You are seeing a little petty ball of mud called Earth. It is the tiniest thing that you can think of in the creation, the most insignificant thing, and bigger things you have forgotten. There are the sun and the moon and the stars. What is happening in the sun and the moon and the stars? Do you know that? Then why are you worrying about little Earth, which is so tiny a speck in this vast astronomical universe? It has no value at all. The greater things are the sun, the moon and the stars, and do you know what is happening there? Do you know what is happening in space and time, and beyond the cosmos? Do you know what is happening in the heavens? Why are you not worrying about that? You are thinking of little petty things. So lift your mind above, from this horizontal way of looking to the vertical way. You must go up, and you will find the answer to every question in one second.

Suppose you are dreaming, and you have borrowed ten million dollars from somebody in dream, and you are having no money to pay back the dollars. A hundred million dollars you borrowed from somebody in the dream world for some purpose, but then you found you cannot repay that money. What is the way of repaying? Do you know? You wake up from the dream, and you have repaid it in one second. What do you say? Suppose you wake up; the debt is paid in one instant. Or are you worrying still that you have not paid the debt? So is the problem of the world. It is something created by the human mind without understanding what is actually happening. You wake up to the Universal Being, and then all the debts are paid in one second. You need not pay any debt afterwards. But it is a very difficult subject. Your mind has to be trained for it. Untrained minds cannot understand it. Even if it is told one thousand times, you will not know what is being told.

The mathematics of creation is quite different from the arithmetic of schoolboys. They are quite different. Actually, there is no arithmetic in God. He doesn't go by mathematics. Two and two make four. Two and two do not make four there. It is quite something else. So all our thoughts have to be reoriented completely, and you have to awaken yourself to a new way of thinking. As an immortal being you must think, and not like a mortal lady. Very important matter. It requires a lot of training under a competent guide. In a few minutes you cannot understand these questions. Your question is connected with the whole creation itself. It is not connected with any particular country in the world. It is a question of the whole creation. If that is answered, every little thing is also answered. Okay?

Another visitor: What is Self-realisation of the cosmic reality?

Swamiji: It is the whole cosmos. It is not sitting inside the body. It is the all-pervading eternity. That is what you are trying to attain when you say, “I want Self-realisation.” It is not this person's self or that person's self; it is the Self, the Self of the universe. If that can contemplate itself as the Self of the universe, it is God thinking Himself. This is the purpose of all yoga, by whatever name you call it. Finally it is that. Infinity and eternity should blend together in Absolute Existence. This is the purpose of every kind of spiritual effort, whatever be the technology that you adopt. Very important.

If all of you are on the right path, you belong to one single community. You belong to one community because all are on the right path. What do you say? Don't you believe that you are on the right path? Why are you hesitating? You tell me: “Yes, we are on the right path.”

Visitors: Yes, we are on the right path.

Swamiji: Okay, then no problem. If you are so very confident that you are on the right path, then no problem will come to you – never. But you must be sure that you are on the right path. You have said just now that you are on the right path. Now don't withdraw that word. Permanently keep it in your mind: “I am on the right path.”

The right path is that path which leads to the proper destination. Now another question comes: What is the proper destination? So one problem will lead to another problem. The right path leads to the proper destination of humanity. Am I right? Now, what is the destination you are aiming at? What do you want finally?

Visitor: Peace.

Another visitor: To be truly here.

Swamiji: Where is this place? This 'here' is... The destination is what you are aspiring for. What are you aspiring for finally? That is called the destination. Your destination is Self-realisation. Then the question comes: What is the meaning of 'Self'? So many selves are there.

This is how you have to train yourself. It requires great training. You should not be diffident. You should not be melancholy. You should not be depressed. You should not have any kind of suspicion and doubt in your mind. You may doubt anything, but you should not doubt yourself. “I am perfectly okay. Do I have any doubt about it? I am perfectly all right. Nothing wrong.” Can you confidently say that in the eye of God you are perfectly all right? Are you perfectly all right in the eye of God?

Visitor: Yes.

Swamiji: Oh, blessed soul! You are a blessed soul. If you are perfectly all right in the eye of God, then there is nothing more to say. We will close our mouth.

Another visitor: I'm not perfectly all right – small self.

Swamiji: You are all right, sir. You are all right.

Visitor: Small self.

Swamiji: No, no, you are not the small self. We have already gone and clarified this matter a little bit. Never consider yourself as a small self. There is nothing wrong with you. You are perfectly all right. Your self is not small. The idea of small cannot arise unless there is also a simultaneous idea of a bigger self. The existence of a bigger thing is implied in the acceptance of the smaller, so you are implying that the bigger self also is there. So assert that. Instead of saying “I am small,” say, “By implication of my saying that I am small, I am asserting at the same time that there is a big one also, and the bigger has a still bigger one.” There is a hierarchy of bigger selves – layer by layer, layer by layer – until your self becomes as large as the entire space and time. You become a cosmic Self. Why should you say 'become'? You are that even now, but you have, by some peculiar circumstance, come down to the level of this little six-foot long, two-feet wide small, small self, which is a travesty of affairs. You have fallen headlong down from the Garden of Eden, as the Bible will tell you. When there is a fall, it is not just a fall vertically; it is an upside down fall with legs up and head down, so we cannot see anything properly. Your perception is topsy-turvy. What is inside you see as if it is outside, and what is outside will look inside. You see your face in a mirror. The right will look like left, and the left will look like right. You go and stand in the Ganga and see yourself. The head, which is the topmost, will look like the lowermost in the reflection. You understand me? The feet, which are the lowermost, will look like the uppermost. This is what has happened to our consciousness. The whole thing is topsy-turvy. Nothing that we think is okay. For that you have to turn the tables round. The top has to go to the top only. Why should it look like it is down?

You are in the world; therefore, the world is not outside you, but yet why do you say that the world is outside? This is the topsy-turvy perception. For that you have to turn your consciousness – not turn the physical body, but to the consciousness – so that you behold yourself as that prior condition of yours before you became a human individual: the world spirit. You are the world spirit.

Expand yourself in the dimension of your consciousness: “Wider I have become, wider I have become. My being is larger than the being of this little body. My consciousness cannot be limited to this body because I can think even the stars.” It is possible for your mind to think even the stars, which means to say, your mind can exceed even the limit of this body. It can reach up to the stars and heavens. Close the eyes and think like that. “I have become bigger and bigger, larger and larger, wider and wider, more and more profound. I have touched the corners of space and time. I am not sitting here in this room. This is an illusion that has been created by topsy-turvy perception. I am not in Rishikesh. I am not on this Earth. I am not in this world at all. I am in a cosmic dimension. I am the world spirit. Unfortunately, I have fallen down. Like an exile, I have been thrown out of heaven. I want to return.” God has kept a flaming sword, it is said, that a person who has fallen cannot go back. This flaming sword is the egoism of the person. The intense, adamant assertion of one's own physical individuality is the flaming sword that God has kept so that you will never go back. That has to be melted down by meditation.

Close your eyes and think that your dimension has increased. You have broken the limits of the horizon. You have touched the corners of the whole space and time – as far as possible. The whole universe is melting down, and it has entered into your Universal Self. “Now I am contemplating myself as all in all. The whole universe is this body.” Then if this contemplation can continue even for a few minutes, you will get whatever you want. The universe will provide you with anything that you want because you have become a friend of the universe now. When you are considering the universe as something alien and outside you, it can give you nothing. You are afraid of it. Now you are befriending it. “My dear world, this universe, you are not outside me. I am thine, and I am thee.” Then all the treasures of the world will flow into you. You become not a man but a superman. Good days are coming. Always tell yourself: “Good days are coming for me. I am happy. God is kind to me. He has planted in my heart and in my mind these great ideas that are entering into me just now in this little room. I am blessed. Everything shall be all right.” So, tell yourself.