Darshan with Swami Krishnananda during 1997

by Swami Krishnananda

13. Helping Humanity

(Darshan given on February 11th, 1997.)

A visitor: How can I help humanity?

Swamiji: It is not in your hand. It is in the hand of the collective totality of humanity. It is not one person speaking. You cannot solve the world problems unless you become a world man. You must become as long and as wide as the world itself, and then with that power you can change creation itself. But as an ordinary individual you can do nothing. You can only make yourself all right, and make your next door neighbour also all right, then make a third person all right, then make a fourth person all right. Like that you go on increasing the number of people whom you will make all right, in the same way as you made yourself all right. When the number of people who have become all right goes on increasing, so much of the problem goes away. Do you understand me? This is how you have to increase the circle. You increase the circle until you reach the largest circle, as much as possible.

I told you yesterday that you have to do some meditation, and I gave you the brief technique of it. I hope you remember it.

Visitor: Yes.

Swamiji: Don't forget it. Meditation is the art of building up your personality internally as well as externally. It is a holistic reconstruction and reconstitution of your psychophysical personality. That is meditation. It is a scientific exercise, very important for every person.

Visitor: Do you think it is scientific?

Swamiji: Nothing is more scientific than that. You are setting yourself in tune with nature, which is the most scientific thing you can think of, and finally you are setting yourself in tune with the mighty Creative Principle of the universe. And what can be a greater science than that? All other sciences come afterwards. All physics, biology, chemistry, they all come afterwards. But this is a transcendental science.

Visitor: For us they are two different parts.

Swamiji: They are not two different parts. The other sciences are only external manifestations of that internal science. It is the controlling switchbox, I can say, of every other science you can think of in the world. It is a total science. Other sciences in the world are partial, segregated, one different from the other, whereas that includes everything. That's why I said it is holistic in its nature – holistic, total. It is a total science which includes geography, history, politics, everything.

Another visitor: I teach yoga.

Swamiji: You have got your own centre.

Visitor: No, I'm teaching at some different yoga schools, just teaching asanas.

Swamiji: Do you teach meditation also?

Visitor: No, I don't teach meditation. I just teach asanas.

Swamiji: If you don't teach meditation, what will happen is the body will be stabilised in some way because of the yoga exercises, but the mind will not be stabilised because you have ignored it. If you ignore the mind, it will not be pleasing to the mind. It requires respect, because the body and mind go together. You cannot separate them. You cannot have physical health without mental stability. So what is the harm if you teach them the art of mental harmonisation? What do you lose by that?

Visitor: I don't think I have anything to lose. Maybe I should do that.

Swamiji: The alignment of personality is mostly a psychological process, which is a part of meditation. Your person should be aligned properly. That is to say, you should have internal stability and composure. The body and mind should be made stable; otherwise, a person will be sick mentally. Balanced thinking is what I meant by proper alignment of personality. You should not go to extremes this way or that way. You will feel a satisfaction inside you. That is a sign of internal balance. Do you feel a satisfaction inside you? Otherwise, that is no good. Something is seriously wrong inside if there is no satisfaction, and what is wrong, each one has to know for oneself.

You have to adjust yourself with everything. Mere physical exercise is not sufficient. Our sorrows, our griefs are not born of the physical body. They are born of our mind only, in the way in which we are thinking.

Another visitor: Last night they chanted the Fourteenth Chapter of the Gita, and in it it speaks of the gunas as something distinct from the Self. In meditation I am confused because it feels like the mind is something that is superimposed, and I don't understand whether it's to be rejected or controlled, and if it is to be controlled, who is controlling the mind.

Swamiji: The best thing is not to think of the gunas. You simply feel that they don't exist at all. They are three types of disturbance that arise in the mind. There is no need of going into detail of all these things. If your mind is able to fix itself satisfactorily on whatever your concept of the Almighty is, these gunas will fly away like birds. They won't come near you afterwards.

These gunas are only certain types of imbalance of the mind. They don't exist outside the mind. It is a very interesting subject. The gunas do not exist independent of the mind. They are the very threads out of which the very fabric of the mind is woven. Just as threads make the cloth and minus threads there is no cloth, minus the gunas there is no mind. If the mind is able to adjust itself to the lofty concept of the great Universal Principle, these gunas will subside automatically. They will find themselves in a state of balance.

There is nothing equal to meditation. Everything will follow from that. You should not go on reading books unnecessarily, and hearing all kinds of sermons. They may be good in their own way, but they will all be covered by this one masterstroke of maintaining oneself in a satisfactory position in the light of the presence of the Almighty in whatever way you may be considering it, whatever way you conceive it.

You should not think too much of these gunas. They actually don't exist except as constituents of the mind itself.

Visitor: In meditation it feels like there is a contradiction for myself of a feeling for who I am, as I am, to concentrate on some Almighty wonder, and to be separate from it.

Swamiji: It is not separate.

Visitor: I know. That's the contradiction.

Swamiji: What is the use of saying “I know, and it is a contradiction”? If your mind cannot accommodate itself to the presence of the Almighty, it should try to do that by repeated exercise of concentration. It cannot get accommodated abruptly like that. It requires daily practice. Anything with which it is not accustomed, it will not agree to. But it is necessary to make it get adjusted to that thought, and a day will come when it will be a normal way of thinking.