Darshan with Swami Krishnananda – 1997

by Swami Krishnananda

46. God, Buddhism and Atheism

(Darshan given on September 9th, 1997)

Visitor: The concept of God, is it the same thing like the Atman in Hinduism or it's like something else?

Swamiji: We have concluded that God is complete, outside which nothing can be. Therefore, it is inside you also. When you consider that Complete Being as present in you, it is called Atman. And it is present here also, there also, so it looks like there are many Atmans, but there are not many Atmans. The One is present in every person. Suppose there are one hundred pots of water. The sun will be reflected a hundred ways. The hundred reflections are of the one sun only, but yet you can see them as a hundred suns if you go on looking at the pots. So the Atman is only a conception of the presence in each person of the same Complete Being. When you do not think of these independent individuals in which the Atman is present – you think of the complete original Absolute itself – it is called Brahman. By itself it is Brahman, Universal Completeness, but when you think it as present in everybody's heart, it is called Atman. It is one and the same thing. There is no difference. One thing is considered in many ways.

Visitor: And how do you know there is a Brahman? That the whole complete universe – it's like you feel it, it's a faith?  What is the…

Swamiji: I am not your Guru. You are not my disciple. This is a very big question. You have to study very deep, very deep. What you have studied in Jewish language may not be a complete thing. You are asking a great philosophical question, and I should not spend my time in arguing all these matters just now. I have no time also. And I am glad that you are raising such questions. That means your mind is very pure. I am happy to see that.

How do you know that you are existing?

Visitor: I don't know. I exist.

Swamiji: How do you know? What is the proof?

Visitor: You don't need it.

Swamiji: Philosophers always want demonstration and proof. Can you demonstrate that you are really existing, and not merely imagining? Are you imagining in your mind that you are existing, or you are really existing?

Visitor: You don't need for this a proof. You just know that you exist.

Swamiji: Then why you want proof for God? [Laughter]

Visitor: No, I'm asking you how you think about God, about this kind, like you think yourself.

Swamiji: As we have concluded already, God is nothing but complete. Why should a complete thing require a proof? Only an incomplete thing requires a proof. You have already accepted that you don't require a proof because it is very clear, you said. And that complete thing is only a universally expanded form of your certainty that you are existing. An individual's certainty is making you feel it is self-evident; it does not require any proof. If you simply expand this consciousness into the universal dimension, it is Brahman, the Absolute; and in the same way as you don't require a proof, it does not require a proof because it is not outside you. It is an enlarged form of your own being, and a miniature of that is yourself. So if you don't want a proof, it also doesn't require a proof because it is just this only. The dimension is enlarged. The enlarged dimension of this thing which does not require a proof does not require a proof also. You understand me?

Visitor: Yes, I understand.

Swamiji: If you think like this too much, you will become a saint. [Laughter] Then you will not go back to Israel. [Laughter] I don't want to make you a saint so quickly. But your heart thinks very pure, your mind is very clear. You're a young man but your thought is very clear. Anyhow, something I have told you. I have told you something very interesting, which you must think deeply. And you will not find this in any book. The way in which I spoke, which has somehow brought you some satisfaction, cannot be found in books. Many books you take, but this will not ring properly. It requires a person. It is to be learned from a person only, not from a book. Anyway, I am glad we had a very happy talk, and you have improved something yourself. You are an improved man now. Okay? You can see me tomorrow also.

Visitor: Okay thank you very much.

[Next day]

Visitor: When I was in Dharamshala I talked with a Buddhist monk, and he told me that there are different kinds of religions. There are religions with God and there are religions without God, and Buddhism is a religion without God. I want to know if you also accept this concept, and if you don't accept it, how do you explain that the holy man that all the time does meditation doesn't believe in that basic thing, the basis of the world?

Swamiji: So what is the whole thing you are telling finally? I can't understand what is the final conclusion.

Visitor: I'm asking, what do you think about Buddhism? How do you see Buddhism?

Swamiji: It is a very good psychology. Buddha is a great psychologist, and he has analysed the human mind thoroughly and concluded the inner constituents of the mind so deeply, more efficiently than any psychologist has done. He is one of the topmost psychologists the world has produced. He has analysed the mind to such depths and completeness that he found finally there is no mind at all.

Here is a cloth. It is made of threads. If the threads are not there, there is no cloth. Remove the thread, each one, and dismantle it. You will find little fibres. Again you break it little by little, little by little, little by little; you will not find the fibre also. The thread has gone, the cloth also has gone, so the cloth does not exist finally, though it looks as if it is existing. Likewise, this whole world, which is perceived by a mental operation, if it is probed into very deeply, threadbare, in its constitution, you will find it does not exist. Neither the mind exists nor the world is there. It is only chaos and a kind of fluctuation, fluxation, a momentary phenomenon which looks like it is existing but really does not exist. So it is a wonderful thing. You are studying Buddhism?

Visitor: I also studied Buddhism. But do you think Buddhism is equal to atheism, or it doesn't talk on another subject, and it doesn't exclude different things?

Swamiji: You cannot call it atheism because atheism means God does not exist. Here it is something more. Not only God does not exist, nothing exists. Even the person who speaks does not exist. So he is not an atheist. The whole thing is completely gone. Even the person who says there is no God, he also does not exist. Then what do you call that religion?

Visitor: Super-atheism. [Laughter]

Swamiji: It is something beyond the ordinary concept. You can study it, very good. So this is what you want to ask me?

Visitor: Yes. I also want to…

Swamiji: There are many kinds of Buddhism – many kinds, not one. Four, five sects of Buddhism arose after Buddha. They are very deep, very interesting philosophical investigations which will make your mind very bright. Every philosophy has got some very interesting points to tell you, only you must be able to find out the truth behind all these varieties. Even if a hundred people tell a hundred things, you can find out the essence of all these people if you are intelligent enough. You have got so many philosophies in Western history, so many philosophies. You have got Greek philosophy, you have got German philosophy, you have got medieval philosophy, you have got theological doctrines of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, and all that; you have got Jewish philosophy and Arabian philosophy. Everything has got some great point in it, but it is up to the student to find the truth of the whole thing, the essence of it, the common denominator.

The whole effort of the human being is to attain perfection. Yesterday we were discussing about the Complete Being. The entire philosophy is there only. Your whole life is centred round this longing, this aspiration to attain complete being. Now you are unsatisfied because you are not complete. You are finite. You are sitting in one place, among many other people. Because other people are there you look very small, so it is called finite. What you are searching for is the transcendence of the finite in the infinite completeness. The whole of philosophy is only this much. You may call it religion, philosophy, mysticism. Call it by any name; they are only different ways of expression which mean one and the same thing. The whole world is aspiring to become infinite completeness. This is all. Religion or no religion, that is a different matter. The whole thing is a scientific process. It has no name. Automatic action of the whole universe in its process of evolution towards ultimate infinite completeness – that is all anybody wants. The whole thing, entire literature, is only this much. Okay?

But it is very difficult. You will forget the whole thing. You don't read one book also, and afterwards you forget. You must stay in one place for many days to understand these things. Sometimes in Dharamshala, sometimes here, sometimes in Madras, sometimes Calcutta – this is all no good. You are travelling, you are gathering some information here and there in all places, but that is not sufficient. If you want to gain knowledge, real knowledge, wisdom, you must stay in one place for as many days as possible, under one teacher. If it is the Dalai Lama, you can go to the Dalai Lama. If you want any Buddhist teacher, you can go to a Buddhist teacher. If you want Sankaracharya, you can go to Sankaracharya. You can go to anybody, but if you want to know their mind and their teachings, you must thoroughly investigate and completely understand what they are saying from beginning to end, in depth. So don't travel too much if you are searching for knowledge. As a tourist you can go anywhere, you can see mountains, rivers, but knowledge cannot come like that by moving.

Visitor: From what I have learned and heard, the Hindus say that the Vedas are something like eternal, and it's just how people heard it, heard the Veda. That's how they came.

Swamiji: The Vedas are a very difficult subject. It is not merely Veda, it is a theory of sound. You know what is sound?

Visitor: Yes.

Swamiji: Sound produces the formation of words. The word that you utter is motivated by a sound that you are producing in your articulation, your vocal cords, and sound is only a vibration. There is no sound, finally. All sounds that you hear are not exactly as they appear to our ears. They are vibrations. There is one universal vibration, like electric force. When vibration strikes the ear, it looks like sound. When it strikes the eye, it looks like colour. When it strikes the skin, it looks like touch. When it strikes the nose, it looks like smell. When it strikes the tongue, it looks like taste. So why are there so many varieties of feeling? There is another example. When electricity works through a stove, it becomes hot. When it works through a refrigerator, it becomes cold. When it touches an electric blade, it moves. So electricity does not move. Electricity is not hot, it is not cold, but it can perform all these functions by contact with a certain medium which is responsible for the diversity of function.

So ultimately the whole universe is vibration, energy. This vibration, or energy, is the beginning of the universe. There was a central vibration before creation took place. Religious people call it God thinking. Scientists call it astronomical potential, which existed like a cosmic atom. Do you know something about modern physics?

Visitor: Yes, I know something, the Big Bang.

Swamiji: The Big Bang. The Big Bang produces small bangs afterwards. Before the Big Bang took place, there was no world like this. What was there before the Big Bang took place? Only a tremendous vibration. It concentrated itself at a point, and something happened there. That vibration, which divided itself into the various phenomena of nature, has no space and time. We are seeing space, distance, and time. It does not exist at that time. It is a compact, indivisible eternity, you may call it. So every sound, every vibration is based on Eternal Substance, Eternal Being.

Have you read the Bible?

Visitor: Yes.

Swamiji: In the beginning was the Word. This is St. John's Gospel: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This is something similar to the Veda theory of the Word being eternity. The Word is not eternity, but the vibration behind it is the Eternal. The vibration can take any shape. I gave you examples of how electricity takes many shapes.

In deep meditation when sages contemplated certain ideas, the energy manifested itself as Word in the language which they spoke. The Veda can be in Sanskrit or it can be in Hebrew. It can be in English or in any language. It can take any form, but in India it so happened the language was Sanskrit so this eternal vibration, which was the object of contemplation by the great masters, was conceived as Sanskrit manifestations. But if a Hebrew sage contemplates, it will come as Hebrew only. It won't come in Sanskrit. It can take any shape. So the eternal Word is not only Veda. It can be any potential of spiritual expression, ultimately. In religion you may call it God's thought or the separation of the Eternal. In that sense only you can say the Vedas are eternal. It does not mean the printed word is eternal. It doesn't mean that. It is a potential which is universal in its nature.