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Darshan of Swami Krishnananda – 1997
by Swami Krishnananda


42. Dreams and Sadhana, Compassion or Love

(Darshan given on August 17th, 1997)

A visitor: Can we make use of dreams in assessing the progress of sadhana?

Swamiji: You cannot do that by dream. Sometimes dreams are irrelevant. But in one way you can have some idea. If you dream certain things, you can conclude that you have got some suppressed emotions. Some desires of this birth, or even a previous birth, they also will come in dream. And it doesn't mean that every dream is bad. Suppose you dream that temple worship is going on, or you are taking a Ganga bath, or mahatmas are giving discourses – if that kind of dream comes, it means your mind is getting purified.

Sometimes physiological conditions also bring about dreams. If you eat a heavy dinner in the night and sleep immediately, the digestive process will stimulate the psychological organ also, and you will have all kinds of irrelevant dreams. They have no spiritual connotation. Sometimes if there is wind in the stomach you will feel that you are flying in the air. The flying in the air is not a yoga shakti or anything. It has no connection with sadhana. It is some physiological trouble. Sometimes you will feel that you are in the ocean swimming. They are all physiological reactions. They have no spiritual meaning.

Only if the dream is connected with some divinity, saint and sage or higher realms of being – puja, worship, satsanga – those dreams can be considered as signs of progress, but not every dream.

Another visitor: If the universe works according to some immutable, inexorable, impersonal law, then where is the case for compassion or grace or love?

Swamiji: It doesn't exist in the universe. When you are united with That, you will never put this question to me. You are standing outside it. You are talking like a human being, not as a part of nature, so there is a contradiction between your feelings and what is actually the fact of life. Nature has no compassion. It has no human feelings. It is a scientific law. It is like mathematics. Mathematics is not a compassionate science. If you make a mistake, everything will be a mistake.

You cannot understand these things as long as you think you are a human being sitting outside it. You have never taken the trouble of concentrating your mind forcefully by uniting it with Nature's mind. You must think like the whole universe; then you will never put this question because you will not be there at all at that time. But the moment you are outside, you will put all these questions.

Visitor: So all this talk about right motives, etc., is irrelevant. When we say that there should be right motives for action, that's…

Swamiji: All things will be summed up in one single moment if you are able to think like the whole cosmos. The cosmos has no questions, and therefore it has no answers. Unless you have a strong will and are free from emotions, you cannot even for a second identify yourself with the whole creation.

What makes you think that you are outside creation? Who told you that? Who is putting the question? Granted that you cannot stand one inch away from the total creation, who is putting the question? The question becomes irrelevant in one second.

Visitor: So if it is myself, there is no such thing as kindness or compassion?

Swamiji: There is no such thing. But everything is correct if you, as an individual, are putting questions to me. If you are an individual, whatever you said is correct.

Humanity is a multiple society, and wherever there is multiplicity of individuals these laws do operate: compassion, goodness, badness, right, wrong, beautiful, ugly, and so on. But Nature is not a society of human beings. Therefore, human laws cannot apply to it. Nature is not a society at all because there are no individuals. It is one compact operation, so your laws cannot work there. It has no meaning, just as the hunger that you felt in dream cannot be appeased by eating food in the daytime. You must eat in the dream world only. So they are two different realms of consciousness. But the emotional pressures which everybody is subject to in some way or the other…

“Let anything happen, it is all right for me.” Will anybody be able to say that? “Let anything happen, it is all right for me.” Has anybody the courage to say that? You will say, “No, it cannot be like that. No, no, it should not be like that” – because you stand apart from that. “If everything goes, still I am perfectly all right.” How can anybody say like that? If the property goes, relations go, job goes, money goes and nobody wants to look at your face, at that time are you perfectly all right? Have you got some strength inside to say, “Yes, I am all right?” You can be all right even at that time, provided you have entered into That which requires nothing, which needs nothing.

This is why every day you must sit and meditate. It is not coming to Sivananda Ashram and sitting for two minutes discussing this, and then going back. You can go back, but this point should not be forgotten. Every day you have to wash the vessels. If you don't wash them, they will become black. So likewise, every day you must sit and meditate like this so that the mind may not get encrusted with other things. I'm not saying that people should not work. Do your work.

“If everything goes, I am still all right.” The conscience must tell that. But that conscience must be highly purified, a purified conscience. If the family goes, wealth goes, money goes, reputation goes, everything goes, what happens at that time? There you stand in your true nature. Your true nature is completely camouflaged by the external associations that you have got. You are an important person because of the presence of other people around you who are cooperating with you in some respect. But if you are alone, without anybody around you, your importance has gone in one second, so that cannot be called importance at all. It is a camouflage, and so any time it can leave you. You must find out if you have got any intrinsic worth, or if your only importance is because someone else is there. Are we existing because somebody is there, or can we exist if nobody is there? That you find out. If our existence is conditioned by the existence of other people, it is a very, very pitiable existence. But you can exist even if nobody exists.

For that, a little conviction is necessary. You should not be doubting in the mind: “Is it all right, is it possible for me, am I fit for it?” You should not put such questions. You are fit for it. Nobody is unfit. If you want it, it must come. It cannot be achieved immediately, but little by little, little by little, by pushing yourself in the right way by deep meditation, at least one hour in the morning or evening, as the case may be.

But the primary importance of this issue cannot be forgotten. One day or other you may be driven to that. Everybody can be driven to that corner one day or the other. Even kings have become paupers in one day. At that time what do the kings do? They will go on crying. Empires fall in sudden catastrophe, so what happened to the emperor at that time? Because his power was extrinsic, it cannot abide.

A human being should have some superhuman internal worth. It is the superhuman internal worth in you that can drive you upwards. If you are not superhuman but you are mortally human, then there is a gulf between your way of living and the natural way of existence.

A very sincere and deep conviction is necessary: “I shall get it, and I shall see to it, I shall think of it, I shall not forget it. I shall keep it in my mind always, whatever be the work that I am doing, and revert to it.” Like a cat – whenever it is threatened by anybody, suddenly it goes to the top of the tree. It has got only one way. Likewise, whatever trouble comes, you have only one way: to revert back to that foundation of your existence.