Darshan of Swami Krishnananda in 1998

by Swami Krishnananda

14. Sannyasa and Rejection

(Darshan given on March 19th, 1998)

Swamiji: By sannyasa, people understand ‘escaping from the reality of the world’. It is not that they have conquered the world. Actually, sannyasa means ‘one who conquered the world’. But otherwise, it has been taken to mean ‘one who is defeated by the world’. He is a good-for-nothing person, the sannyasi. Neither is he fit for God, nor for the world – only Kali Kambali biksha. It is a tragedy.

I have written one essay in my book, The Ascent of the Spirit: The Segregation of the Temporal from the Spiritual. The eternal and the temporal are segregated. But they are not segregated. The eternal is present in the temporal also. God is present in the world, so you cannot renounce the world like that. It is like renouncing God Himself afterwards. God is immanently present in the world, so when you renounce the world the immanent God also goes with it. Who has got the brain to think all these things?

When you reject a person, you also reject the soul of that person because the person is nothing without his soul. So are you actually considering what you are rejecting? When you reject a person, what are you rejecting? You reject the soul also. Who can answer these questions?

This distinction made by the temporal and the eternal has made one feel God is above this world, and the world is below God. The world is binding, God is liberating. And God is an otherworldly affair. You cannot get God in this world, so you have to reject everything.

But they don’t know that they cannot reject anything in the world because the person who says “I will reject” is included in the world, so what are you rejecting? The relationship between God and the world, the relationship between oneself and the world, the relationship between oneself and God, this is not clear. Then all that you do is a big mess, and what is the good of doing anything with this kind of mess in the mind? Nobody knows where one is sitting also.

[Later on]

A visitor: The point between waking and sleeping, and the point between two thoughts, are these related? Are these similar? Are these related?

Swamiji: It is the same point that is appearing in three different ways, and that point does not belong either to the waking or to the dream. It does not belong either to the subject or to the object. It does not belong either to this part of the mind or that part of the mind. It is an integrating principle, a transcendental consciousness. It is the Ultimate Being itself operating in this manner, integrating apparently dissected pieces of experience. Otherwise, you will never know that you are awake, or you are waking, or you are thinking. You will not know anything. When waking and dream are different, how will you know that there is waking and dreaming? There is something which brings them together. So is the case with anything that is two. The fact of something being in dual form cannot be known unless there is something which is not dual. That is the eluding factor in life. It always escapes notice, due to which we are alive, and yet we do not know how it is that we are alive.

I was just now thinking, if you want to prevent the flitting of the mind from one place to another place in meditation, put a question: How long does a person live in the world? A clear-cut answer must come. Where does a person go after leaving the world? And what makes a person alive in the world? These are such serious things that the mind will never run about here and there. It will concentrate, and now there is no problem of the mind running here and there.

Another visitor: Answering this question, fear may come, Swamiji.

Swamiji: Then only the mind will concentrate. Unless there is fear, the mind cannot concentrate.

Visitor: Where will it concentrate, Swamiji?

Swamiji: You must be threatened. Then only you will immediately do the work. Unless a policeman is there, everybody will be a thief only. People are good only because of fear. Otherwise, they are horrible people, every person.

Another visitor: I try hard to overcome attachments.

Swamiji: What attachment have you got?

Visitor: I have an attachment to what I believe, even if it is wrong, that it should be right.

Swamiji: How do you distinguish between what is right and what is only an imaginary right? How do you distinguish?

Visitor: With great difficulty, Swamiji, sometimes.

Swamiji: Do you feel any difference is there between imaginary rectitude and real rectitude?

Visitor: I try to turn off the thoughts here, and I try to feel from here [gesturing to the heart] but sometimes it doesn’t work. I need to meditate more. I need to grow more.

Swamiji: I don’t think this is a problem at all. You must simply ignore it. It is only a peculiar trick of the mind which wants to divert your mind from the act of meditation. The mind is a very clever instrument which can find ways and means to distract you from doing the right thing. It will create doubts in the mind – foolish doubts, meaningless things. What is your final aim?

Visitor: To be enlightened.

Swamiji: Enlightened into the God-consciousness?

Visitor: Yes.

Swamiji: Go ahead with it. No problem. And devote as much time as possible. What else I can do for you? I have done whatever I can by telling you what is proper for you.

Visitor: Just to be with you Swamiji.

Swamiji: You are already with me. You can be with anything wherever you are. This is also a very interesting thing. To be with anybody, you need not travel to any place. Whatever you want, it is everywhere. If you want to contact a person in London, you need not travel to London. By thought you can contact, by identification of your mind with that person’s mind. Ordinarily they call it telepathy, but actually it is much more than that. It is a kind of yoga. When you can contact God Himself in meditation, why you cannot contact something else? It requires a little courage of thinking, and confidence, and faith that it is correct and it shall be done, and “I shall get what I want.” I have nothing more to say. Thank you. I will see you again. God bless you.