A- A+

Darshan with Swami Krishnananda – 1998
by Swami Krishnananda


4. Mystical Experience

(Darshan given on January 25th, 1998)

A visitor: I would like to know, so I can help other people to understand, that mystical experience comes to people from all different faiths, and that it is something that can be talked about, although maybe not fully described.

Swamiji: What is your definition of a mystical experience?

Visitor: Well, I would say a direct apprehension of God.

Swamiji: How would you manage to have a direct experience of God?

Visitor: I think only by surrendering your ego.

Swamiji: Can anybody do that?

Visitor: It's very hard, but I think by grace you can do that.

Swamiji: Surrendering the ego means abolishing the consciousness of individual personality.

Visitor: Yes.

Swamiji: Can you do that?

Visitor: I don't think you can do it deliberately, but I think by grace you can do it. I think God will help you do it.

Swamiji: Very good. You are a very wise lady. You have caught the point correctly. Very good, very good.

Have you been practising along these lines?

Visitor: No. That's partly why I know you can't – I mean, I couldn't do deliberately. It happened to me by I just started to have experiences about one and a half years ago.

Swamiji: You had some experience? What kind of experience?

Visitor: I think by the kundalini because I had very strong feelings of peace and…

Swamiji: Though kundalini is one kind of mysticism, that is not the whole of it.

Visitor: No, but I'm just saying for me. And I also had experiences with electricity coming from me. I accept Ramakrishna had much bigger experiences, but…

Swamiji: Ramakrishna, they are all very big people. Now, what I'm saying is, are you feeling very happy and complete in your personality that you are moving towards the Reality in some degree?

Visitor: I am very far from where I have to be, but I feel that I am moving that way because I feel that I'm being – I don't know how you say – guided to other people.

Swamiji: Mystical experience or God experience can be had only by deep meditation. I am wanting to know whether you are also doing some meditation.

Visitor: The only meditation which I was really taught was a visualisation of energy coming through the spine, the light coming up.

Swamiji: Can you conceive God in your mind?

Visitor: No.

Swamiji: Or at least picturise, visualise, imagine at least?

Visitor: No, because I don't think of God as being a form.

Swamiji: If you ask a child, “What do you think of God?” the child will say, “So big, so big.” At least it says something: So big, so big. 'So big' means 'bigger than what I am'. Here is the beginning of mystical experience. The child's explanation “Oh, so big, so big,” that is the beginning of spirituality. So you also feel, “Oh, so big, so big.” At least you accept that there is something bigger than you. That is very important. Now here you are touching a vital point. It is not an ordinary thing. You are mostly thinking of yourself only, the whole day and night. Can you think of something which is bigger than you? This is a spiritual step you are taking.

Visitor: Infinite consciousness, I think.

Swamiji: I don't want to take you to such a height. Anything bigger than you, larger than you, wider than you, more powerful than you, more happy than you, with more capacity to survive – can you imagine something? Meditate on that. You may call it God in the highest sense of the term.

Ask your conscience: Am I really searching for God, or it is only a bypass road?

Visitor: Can you tell me?

Swamiji: I want to ask you.

Visitor: I think I'm searching for God. But you are very wise. You may be able to see better into myself than I can. I don't know.

Swamiji: Oh, I am face to face with a great lady. Very rarely people say, “I am in search of God.” They always complain, “I have got this trouble, that trouble.” People speak like that. “I want God,” very rarely they speak. They are frightened to utter that word. But you had the courage to say that. Then it is wonderful.

If you want God, it shall come. What you want must come. That is the power of the psyche of a human being. You can even shake the whole space if you really believe that you have such strength. Like Atlas, you can carry the whole globe on your body. You should never think that you are a small person, a helpless person, a poor person, an unwanted person. These ideas should not enter the mind. You are very much a wanted person: “God wants me. The whole world is wanting me. The skies are wanting me. The sun and the moon and the stars are wanting me. They are my friends. They are my guardians. I am well-off in every way. They shall take me to the ultimate Absolute.” You go on telling this to yourself. These little, little words that I uttered now, they are also like mantra.

But you have got a profession. You have got no time to think.

Visitor: No, my profession now is this. I've made my profession by talking to people.

Swamiji: Your profession is legal?

Visitor: Yes, it was. But I am now working as a writer to talk to people who know more than I do about mystical experience.

Swamiji: There is a great book in India called Yoga Vasishtha. It is the topmost mystical text in India. It was originally written in Sanskrit, in thirty-two thousand verses. It has been translated by someone into the English language, in several volumes. But it is very difficult to go through such a mighty tome. There are abstracts, epitomes of this book also. Everywhere you will find this name uttered by people who are accustomed to spiritual life. The name of the book is Yoga Vasishtha. This is the best. Vasishtha is a great sage, and the yoga that he taught is recorded in a mighty book called Yoga Vasishtha. It is the highest experience of mysticism that he is talking about. After reading that book you need not read anything else in mysticism. But there are many others also – Upanishads, for instance. The Upanishads are mystical texts. Even the Bhagavadgita is a mystical text.

Now, listen to me. We are sitting for meditation on God, so you also sit and meditate. You can sit comfortably, in any posture, and summon God into your heart.