Darshan with Swami Krishnananda – 1997

by Swami Krishnananda

59. Meditate on I Am

(Darshan given on December 18, 1997)

Swamiji: 'I am' – on that you meditate.

An ashramite: Swamiji, why are they saying 'I am that I am'? 'I am' is not sufficient?

Swamiji: No, there is no necessity for 'that I am'. It is unnecessary. It is an unnecessary muddling. 'I am' only. Know that I am.

Another ashramite: So then when it is said 'I am', 'I' means 'consciousness'.

Swamiji: If you are consciousness, then 'I am' means that consciousness is saying 'I am consciousness'. But where is the consciousness sitting? Where is it located? There will be a usual erroneous habit of concluding that consciousness is inside the body. That is an erroneous notion. Consciousness is not inside the body. It is an all-pervading, soul existence. So when somebody says 'I am consciousness', you must be very careful as to who is making the statement. The whole universal total is making the statement 'I am, I am'. It is a stupid idea that we are some persons, but so much we are habituated to identify our consciousness and I with this body only, born of some father and mother, that this idiotic idea never leaves a person. It requires tremendous effort on the part of the will of the meditator to assert that this 'I am' is not this person asserting 'I am'. It is the Pure Universal Existence exerting itself as 'I am'.

Ashramite: But this Pure Universal Consciousness, does it have the need to assert itself that it is?

Swamiji: It is not asserting itself; it is knowing it is. You need not use the word 'asserting', it is aware that it is. God-consciousness is just consciousness of God knowing that He is God. This kind of thinking is impossible for the stupid mind which is attached to the body. The consciousness that is apparently hidden and restricted by this body should be made to feel this location and spread itself out throughout space, and even beyond space. This is the whole secret of the sutra of Patanjali, bahirakalpitā vṛittiḥ (Y.S. 3.44): Transport yourself from this location to the highest possible location – beyond, beyond, beyond, far away, up to the boundaries of creation.

Ashramite: Are we actually transporting ourselves, or are we just knowing that we are already there?

Swamiji: It is the same thing. It makes no difference. Knowing that you are already there is actually a transporting of your being to that place by intense effort. It requires special willpower. It cannot be done easily like that. Nobody can feel that oneself is somewhere else. I am sitting here on the cot, and how will I feel that I am in the top of the sky? How will anybody feel like that? But it is necessary to feel that. Beyond the boundary of space I am sitting now. Can anybody feel like that? And I am seeing this body here, but I am actually somewhere beyond the boundary of space. Space is so large, and I am beyond that. From there I am looking back and seeing this body sitting here and meditating. Go on thinking like this: “I am not here. I am beyond space. Space is so large, incalculably wide, incomprehensibly distant, and that place is my location. I am sitting there. Millions and millions and millions of kilometres, I am far away. Endless. I have gone beyond the location of the sun also. I am looking down from there. The sun is down below. I have gone beyond the sun also. The sun is an object I am looking at from there. And this body also I am looking at. Where am I just now? I am everywhere, spreading myself. I am finding myself everywhere, in every corner of the circumference of space. Everywhere I am sitting. From there I am looking at this place, this Sivananda Ashram, this Divine Life Society, this office, this table, this chair, and all that.”

So where are you now? You are not in Sivananda Ashram. You are beyond the sun, beyond the space. From there you look back. This is the sutra of Patanjali, bahirakalpitā vṛittiḥ: Transport your consciousness to a location which is far, far beyond your apparent physical location. This will enable you to detach yourself from this body, and you will not be attached to anything afterwards because from that location which is far beyond space, you will be looking at the whole universe, and you cannot be attached to anything afterwards.

Another ashramite: But Swamiji, in this process there are also things of subjectivity and objectivity.

Swamiji: There is no subject-object there because you are everywhere, so which is the object? You are in the object also, so why do you call it an object?

Ashramite: Because you are looking at something.

Swamiji: Why are you looking? This thing is a dead body that you are seeing, actually. The real thing is somewhere else. This is like a shadow. The sun is looking at its own shadow, as it were. This is the first step. The second point is called sakshi. You are looking at your own self. Then after that, there is something more. It is not simply looking. That thing which you are looking at is also yourself only. So the object has become the subject immediately. It is God beholding Himself.

Another ashramite: Swamiji, it will be done by way of thinking only, by the process of thinking that we are there?

Swamiji: It is the thinking which is not ordinary thinking. By thinking, we generally mean a process of consciousness which knows that there is something outside it. That is thinking. But here is a thinking outside in which there is nothing.

Ashramite: It is an exercise of the mind.

Swamiji: Yes, but there is the cosmic mind operating. When the cosmic mind is operating, it has no object in front because the cosmic mind includes all the objects also. So it is a different stage of thinking. It is called brahmakara vritti, whereas in our ordinary process we call it vishayakara vritti. A vritti is a psychosis, a way of thinking. When the ordinary mind thinks, there is a vishayakara vritti, there is an object in front of it, whereas in the cosmic mind, it is brahmakara vritti. A total thing manifests itself. It is the consciousness of the totality of existence itself which is brahmakara vritti, but the consciousness of something outside is vishayakara vritti. That is the difference between the two kinds of vrittis.

Ashramite: Swamiji, then how to know or feel what is space, because we know that space and consciousness…

Swamiji: If you can feel nothing outside, you have reached the highest state. You should not feel that there is a space outside you. You must absorb that space also inside you. You are the space also, so what will you see outside you? If there is no necessity to be conscious of anything external to you, you can consider yourself as the highest state: “Now even space is not there. Space also has come inside me.” Here is a very treacherous situation where a man can fall this side or that side. If you fall this side, you fall into the pit; if you fall that side, you are in heaven.

Ashramite: How to distinguish between this consciousness and space?

Swamiji: There should be no space. The space is yourself only. You are distinguishing between yourself and yourself. That is why I say it is a very treacherous thing. How to consider space also as yourself? Then you cannot say there is anything outside because the idea of outside arises due to the space. You have become the space also. The Upanishad says you are death itself. The fear of death also goes at that time. You yourself are death. Then are you afraid of yourself? Can anybody feel that you yourself are the process of dying? Somebody is not inflicting death on you. You yourself are death. You yourself are Yama only. If I am Yama, then who will come and eat me? That consciousness feels satisfied: “I have got all power now. No interference is possible. Even the transformation process is also myself only. Birth and death and transmigration, everything, are myself only. I am rolling myself within myself like the ocean rolling within itself.” Let the joy, sorrow, wanting, not wanting, the whole thing gets cancelled immediately. It is impossible to describe what it is unless you actually practise it. It is not a theoretical question.

This is something from our prejudices. Have you got any preconceived notion about anything? You make a judgment of something because already you have got an idea that it should be like this.

Ashramite: On that basis we make a judgment.

Swamiji: What are the things that you want, and what are the things that you don't want? These also are conditioning factors. Is there anything that you want? Is there anything that you don't want? You find out whether any such thing is there in the mind. Is there anything that you like very much and dislike totally? You compare and contrast with this. We cannot know this unless we are placed in such a circumstance. When you are not having that experience at all… Only a poor man will know what hunger is. Every day you get a meal, and you cannot tell what is hunger. Every day you get breakfast, lunch, dinner, milk and fruit, so you cannot know what is hunger. Even if you try to describe it, you cannot describe it because you have not experienced it. Only a beggar sitting on the road will know what is hunger. Similarly, it requires direct experience. The facilities and comforts that God might have given do not necessarily mean that we are thinking of Him. We may be thinking of the facilities only, not Him.

For instance, we have got comfort and security provided by the good government that we are having. We don't have a fear that something will come and attack us. There is no such fear because the government is very good. That is the consequence of the good government. But we don't think of the man who is responsible for running a good government. We don't think of him. We are not concerned with that man at all. We can walk on the road freely, and nobody will attack us. That is the security the government gives. But in some countries you cannot walk on the road also. It is serious trouble. In other places, people won't come out of the room also. They just sit there. They cannot come out of the house. Here it is not like that. You can go anywhere, walk up to Haridwar and come, and nobody will worry you. That is the security you have got.

But who is causing the security? Nobody thinks of that. We are not worried about the cause of it. We are seeing only the effect, but not the cause. I am getting food every day, but who is giving the food? That is very important. From where do I get the food? How does it come to me? I simply sit here, and food comes. But how it comes? Somebody must be working for it. Who is that somebody who is taking so much concern over our daily meals, and all that? People may say, “I have got money, so I will get food whenever I want.” But from where you got the money? You had some circumstances under which you could earn money, but how the circumstances came up? There is one thing behind the other; there are causes behind causes.

How many times the thought of God enters the mind? The facility is given; that is a secondary aspect. How many times the thought of God enters, in the right manner? This is a kind of meditation. The thought of God is the same as meditation. But you must have some means of remembering Him in the midst of our daily activities, because the activities are also thrust on you by some prarabdha karma, or whatever it is. Anything that you have deliberately purchased and taken on your head, that is your karma. But that which has come upon you somehow willy-nilly, due to circumstances, that is also one kind of karma. And something that you are doing for somebody's sake, that also is a karma only. In the midst of these, how will you remember it?

In the newspaper yesterday, in the Times of India, on the top, I used to tell, “Don't look in front; see sideways.” I was telling people. That sentence is there on the top. “See sideways.” Don't see what is in front of you; see what is beside you. You should never consider anything as being in front of you, because then it becomes an object. If it is beside you, parallel to you, it is equal to you, so there is no attachment and hatred at that time. It is with you, in the same line. If it is in the front, it is an opposition. The whole world is the Viratsvarupa, as I mentioned to you again and again, where everything is parallel to this one body. This hand is not an object of the other hand. They are parallel actions. All the functions of the body inside are all parallel actions. Simultaneously they are taking place, as if it is one action. When you see like this, you are not seeing anybody. You are seeing yourself only, because all things are parallel to you. The sun is not being seen by us. The sun is seeing, and we are also seeing simultaneously with him. He is our colleague. The sun is a colleague, and not an object that we can look at. This is also my colleague, everything. See sideways, not to the front.

Nothing is an object in the world because that which you wrongly consider as an object is also seeing you as an object. So who is the object, actually speaking? The very idea of an object is a mistake. Everything is seeing only. Everything is seeing, and nothing is seen. You cannot have a separate section of things called 'seen', and a separate section called 'seeing'. It doesn't exist. Everything sees. Even an ant sees, even an atom sees, and even a sand particle sees. But for us they are objects. A right-about-turn of perception is necessary. Then things will flow like this. Now they are repelled. The objects get repelled. But the subject is pulled inside towards yourself. Anything that you consider as different from you, as an object outside, will run away from you immediately. This is what Yajnavalkya mentions in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. Sarvaṁ tam parādād yo'nyatrātmano sarvaṁ veda (B.U. 2.4.6): If anything is an object, it will run away from you. Would you like anybody to consider yourself as an object? “This man is insulting me, as if I am an object.” Then you cannot do that to others also. When you say something is an object, you are making it a servant. It is inferior. You are giving it an inferior status. Who asked you to give that inferior status to anything? What right have you? That is the ego. But others also have the ego. They will also put you in the same position. So why not be friendly, equal, and not connect anybody as an object. Then the total subjectivity is God-consciousness. It is just here only, not somewhere far off. This is the whole story.