Darshan with Swami Krishnananda during 1997

by Swami Krishnananda

32. Integrating the Mind

(Darshan given on June 5th, 1997)

Swamiji: You asked me a question: What is integration?

Integration means thinking that which is complete. The thought of anything that is complete in itself is the way to maintain integration of the mind. You cannot find anything complete in this world. Everything in the world is incomplete because everything excludes something else. Therefore, nothing in the world can be complete. So you cannot have an integrated feeling by thinking of anything in this world because everything is partial inasmuch as it excludes something else. You cannot find in this world anything which includes everything into itself. Therefore, the world is incomplete.

Therefore, the satisfaction that you get from the world will also be incomplete. So nobody can be completely happy in this world fully because you are pursuing that which is itself not complete, and what cannot be complete can give you only incomplete satisfaction. The only thing that is complete is that which created the whole world. Can you conceive that?

Visitor: I can try.

Swamiji: You can do it in one minute if your heart is up to it. It takes one minute. Then you will feel you are integrated. The whole world gets concentrated in you when you pray to God. 'The whole world' means that which does not exclude anything from itself. The world is integrated because outside the world nothing can be. If that total can be conceived in your mind, you are immediately psychologically integrated. You may think the whole world or the whole of God, as the case may be.

This requires a little bit of practice, and every day you must sit and try to adjust your mind in this direction. You should not think anything outside which there is something, because then it is not complete. You must think only of that, outside which nothing is. You may think of the whole universe; that also is good enough because outside the universe nothing can be. The thought of the whole universe at one stroke is also integration – or if you like, God Himself. This practice must be done. Then the world will get attuned to yourself. That which is complete in itself should get tuned up to you, either the whole world or the whole of God. You will not be able to find solace by thinking of little petty things. For this, you must have a little faith in your own self. You will become all right if you follow this path. When you come back again, you will be a better man if you follow this path. Okay?

Visitor: Yes, Swamiji.

Another visitor: My question is, how to identify bliss.

Swamiji: You should not have attachment to anything in this world. You should neither love nor hate anybody. Then your mind gets purified. Then the bliss will come from inside. But when there are attachments, it won't come. If you like and hate, raga-dvesha, clinging and avoiding, and the mind is in a state of conflict between raga-dvesha, then a mind in conflict will never attain bliss. So it requires purification of the mind first. If you live like a grihasthi, full of attachments and complications and commitments, always thinking too many things in the mind, the mind cannot get concentrated. A person who can think two things cannot get one thing. You are thinking two things, a hundred things in the mind, so how will the mind get concentrated?

You are not in your own self. You are outside yourself, thinking of the world outside – marketplace, family, business, money, profession, pension. These things in the mind are occupying you very powerfully, so you have forgotten yourself completely. In your concern for other things, you have lost concern for yourself; therefore, the bliss is not coming out. You forget that you are an important person. You are thinking the world is very important. The whole thing is topsy-turvy.

Visitor: Swamiji, but I have not understood. What is my real nature?

Swamiji: Your nature is Absolute Being. Your nature is divinity. God-nature is your real nature. You have come from God; therefore, you cannot be something else. A spark of fire has come from a huge configuration of fire, and therefore it is also fire. The only thing is, it is covered with smoke and many other forms of dust, etc. If you are sure that you are created by God, God would not create some non-God. He will create God only. So there is an element of God in you, which is shrouded by too much concern with that which is other than one's own self.

God has no external object; therefore, whoever thinks of external objects does not think as God thinks, and therefore the bliss of God cannot manifest in oneself if your mind is not trained in that way. It is a very difficult thing, but a very simple thing to understand. A thing with which you are not acquainted looks very difficult, but when you understand it, it is the simplest of things.

In our concern with people outside, we have lost concern with our own selves. You consider yourself as an unimportant person in your concern with other people, but you are not to think like that. You are a very important person. If you yourself do not exist, how will you be showing concern for other people? Will you abolish yourself in order to save other people?

Unless you are strong, you cannot make others strong. A person who is caught up in a prison cannot liberate others from prison. Come out of the prison first, and then there may be some way to release other people also. You yourself are inside the prison and want others also to get out.

The bondage consists in thinking totally contrary to what God will expect you to think. This requires a lot of training, and two days sitting in Sivananda Ashram is not sufficient. You should not put questions like that. No answer will come like that. It is like asking an engineer, “How did you build this bridge? There is a big bridge across the Ganga. Please explain to me how you built it.” He will say, “What kind of question you are asking? I studied for twenty-five years and then with that knowledge I have built it, so how can I answer the question? It is a question of technology.”

This is a psychological technique; you may call it a spiritual technique. It is a highly proficient way of thinking. It requires discipline and time, and earnestness, and eagerness to know it, and you should not say, “I have no time.” If you have no time for what is good for you, where is the time for you for other things? First of all, find out what is good for you. What do you want, finally?

Most people suffer from not knowing what they want. Ask anybody, “What do you want finally?” He will look up, and he cannot answer. He will say, “I want many things,” but actually nobody wants many things. They want themselves only, in a most-expanded form, permanently. You want yourself only, but not as Mr. so-and-so sitting here. You want to enhance the dimension of your being as much as possible. You would like to be as big as the universe itself, if possible. Why should you be a little man sitting in Delhi? “If possible I could be as big as Delhi itself, as big as the whole world.” And also, for how many days? Suppose you are so big for one second, and then die tomorrow. That is no good. So you want to be perpetually existing also.

So two desires are there. One thing is, you must be as big as possible, and another is, for as long as possible, so your desire defies space and defies time. That is your desire. You want to overcome space and overcome time also. That means to say, you want eternity. This is what your desire is. But you are not able to understand. You are muddled up with so many confused things, mixed up. You have not found time to think over this matter. You have come here for two days like a tourist. Students don't come like tourists; they come for studying only, and they must have as much time to spare as is necessary. You should not think anything else in the mind. Forget everything.

But many commitments are there; you will think like that. The commitments and duties of the world are not opposed to spiritual meditation. That is another mistake that we are making. The activities and the industrialisations and the great business of life is not an obstacle to spiritual life. The obstacle is the inability to reconcile these two sides. You are unable to reconcile the internal and the external. You think they are opposites. It is not like that. It is like the opposition that you are creating between God and the world. God is not opposed to the world, nor is the world opposed to God, yet sometimes we think like that: This world is wretched, and God is wonderful! This thinking also is a very immature thinking. All this requires great training.