Darshan of Swami Krishnananda in 1998

by Swami Krishnananda

21. How to Deal with Desires

(Darshan given on July 4th, 1998)

Swamiji: The world does not go according to mathematics and logic. The goodness or the badness of a person is not a mathematical problem. Draupadi asked a question: “On what ground is Yudhisthira justified in staking me in the dice? He has already lost himself. After that, how second time...? How a lost man stakes another? Am I a property?”

Bhishma said, “You ask your husband only. Dharma is very subtle.” Why should he say like that? A lady is being molested, and a wise man is sitting there. “Very subtle,” he says. What is the good of your dharma which is subtle? You want an open, clear one. What is the good of seeing somebody is suffering?

An ashramite: And also not coming to the rescue at that critical time.

Swamiji: Ah, no good! So people ask why Karna is killed, and he says, “Let Karna remember what he has done.” It is tit-for-tat also. Very difficult to understand anything.

The same thing – forget this Mahabharata – how to deal with desires. Are you to deal with them as your enemies, as your colleagues, as your cooperators, as your friends, or as robbers? What is the position of these desires? No definition can help us here. You cannot say desires are very great friends, nor are they enemies. In the Gita the sense-control method is given. One method is to prevent the sense organs from contacting the objects. The next half verse says that another method of control is to absorb the whole objects of the world into the sense organs themselves. Now, what is this? He says to absorb the objects into the sense organs so that they cease to be objects of sense because guṇā guṇeṣhu vartante (B.G. 3.28): The sense organs are made up of the same substance as the objects that they are craving. So it is an illusion that makes you want something. The distance between you and the object, due to space-time intervening, makes you feel you want it. The person who wants is made up of the same substance which he wants, so what is this desire? It has no meaning.

Ashramite: It is something outside.

Swamiji: Ah, if you know this, immediately there is self-control. Otherwise, you cut off connection. Two methods are mentioned in one sloka.

We will face all these problems. One day you have to face Bhishma, one day you have to face Drona, one day you have to face Karna, one day you will face Duryodhana. They are not dead and gone. They are sitting inside only, and we are to handle it.

Ashramite: It looks, at present Swamiji, without the help of Krishna we cannot deal with it.

Swamiji: Every sadhana is a cosmic action. It is not an individual action. You cannot remember that. Our egoism is so hard, we think we are doing something: “I am meditating,” and so on. This 'I am meditating' business is no good. The meditation is done by meditation itself.

Ashramite: Swamiji, during the meditation itself, if the meditation is not successful, it is also cosmic will.

Swamiji: Why it is not successful? You find out. What is the good of complaining? What is wrong with you? Some technique that you have adopted is not okay. That is why satsanga is necessary. You must always discuss like this. “I have no time, I have no time.” You have no time to think your own good also. What for is the time then? Then when you are doing work, tat chintanaṁ tat kathanaṁ anyonyaṁ tat prabodhanam (Panchadasi 7.106): thinking that, discoursing on that, conversing on the subject and depending on that only wholly. “Oh, my husband is dead,” the wife will say, “My husband is dead.” Then she will go to the other house and cry, “My husband is dead.” She will go to the next village and say, “My husband is dead.” And when eating she will say, “I don't want anything.” Whatever she does, she will cry, “My husband is dead.” Only one thought, one thought. Same thing she is thinking and same thing she is telling to everybody. From house to house she will go: “My husband is dead.” “My child died.” Such kind of concentration is necessary. Go house to house, everywhere, village to village, and say, “This is the thing. Do it.”

[Later on]

Swamiji [to a visitor]: Each drop in the ocean can assert its self-identity, but that self-identity is swallowed up in the self-identity of the ocean. So why I am telling this is, when you think of the One, that which is not included in the One should not disturb the mind. That which is not included in the One should not cause disturbance. There should be nothing which is not included in the One.

Visitor: Yes, everything must be included.

Swamiji: It is the One that is the ocean, and not the one drop, or even a multitude of drops.

[Later on]

Swamiji: Agajānana-padmākaṃ gajānanam-aharniśam, anekadantaṃ bhaktānām ekadantam-upāsmahe. Gajānana is Ganapati. Agajānana-padmākaṃ. Agajānana is the opposite of Gajānana. Gajānana is Ganapati. What is Agajānana? The opposite of it. Who is this Agajānana? Padmākaṃ: Padmāka means 'who delights Agajānana'. Who is that Agaja? Actually, it is to be split into two parts. Aga means mountain, ja means born of. Who is born of mountain? Parvati. This Gajānana is Ganesha. He is the joy of Parvati. Agajānana-padmākaṃ gajānanam-aharniśam, anekadantaṃ bhaktānām: Anekada means many teeth. For devotees, his teeth are many. And such Ganesha I pray to. Ekadantam-upāsmahe: One tooth only he has got, but then why he is called anekadantaṃ? Anekadantaṃ means anekadan taṃ. You must split it. Anekadan means giver of large largeness. Anekadan taṃ: He gives a lot. Anekadan taṃ. You should not combine them together.

These are all humorous slokas.