Darshan of Swami Krishnananda in 1998

by Swami Krishnananda

32. Technique of Chanting Om

(Darshan given in September 1998)

Swamiji: ...otherwise, this distraction cannot take place. You are thinking of two things at the same time. 'Concentration' means thinking of one thing only. If you are thinking of the world, okay; think of the world only. Then don't bring any other item. And if you think that God is all-comprehensive, and everything that you want in the whole universe can be had from That, there is no reason why the mind shouldn't go to that. You just logically think a little bit. If you can get everything that you want in one place, why do you go to another place? That means the mind is having a dual feeling: “There is something valuable in this world. I cannot reject it for the sake of even God.” This idea of God, Devi, or whatever it is, is theoretical at present, but the concentration on the world's value is practical. The practical thing overweighs the theoretical concept. “God-realisation is good, Bhagavati puja is good,” the intellect says. But the feeling says, “No, it is not like that. The world is very important, and I have to take care of all the family. I want money, I want bank balance, I want health, wealth, and so many things.” This is the feeling in the heart. The feeling in the heart contradicts the intellectual acceptance of God being everything. There is a conflict between understanding and feeling, unless these two join together. When understanding and feeling join together, it becomes intuition.

I will tell you one technique. You sit quiet. Chant the mantra 'Om' [Swamiji chants Om]. Fifteen minutes continuously, do that. At that time, no other thought will enter your mind because of the sound. You are actually hearing the sound, so at that time the mind cannot think anything else. It will think of the sound only. Fifteen minutes in the morning, fifteen minutes in the evening. If you can increase it, well and good.

This Om that I chanted just now is not merely a sound. It is a universal vibration, from which the whole creation took place. If you are acquainted with modern scientific discoveries, you would have realised that the whole universe started with the huge bang, called the Big Bang, and those vibrations became more and more solid, solid, solid. It was only a fiery ball. The whole earth was a fiery ball which broke off from the sun, and where were we at that time? When the whole earth itself was a fiery ball, where were we? We never existed except as a potential energy of the universal energy. Then that energy came down. In millions of years it slowly came down, and became water, and then earth. The earth produced plants, and so on. We eat food, and then we are born through the mother and father, but our origin is not in this world. The whole earth itself is not a self-contained reality. It has come from the sun, and the sun has come from the Milky Way and the whole starry system. It is a very difficult thing to imagine this. You are belonging to the whole universe. You are not coming from Delhi, and all that. What is Delhi? There is no Delhi, no Earth also. Everything is controlled by That. You cannot lift a finger until the order comes from the central government of God Himself. This vibration, due to which you are doing like this, is connected with the nervous system and the muscles. These nervous systems and muscles are connected with the whole Earth planet. The earth is connected with the solar system. The solar system is connected with space-time. Ultimately it is depending on God only. Unless God wills, your finger cannot move. But we are very egoistic. We can do anything. This boasting has spoiled everything.

Chant Om like this, fifteen minutes in the morning, fifteen minutes in the evening, and don't think anything else. Actually, you cannot think anything else due to the sound that you are making. [Swamiji again chants Om, and tells the group to chant Om as well.] Merely by the chanting of Om, there is so much peace. All the agony, headache, everything, vanishes at that time because this all-pervading force engulfs you completely.

Think: The God that I am meditating upon is all-inclusive, all space, all time, all sun, moon, stars, the whole earth, the entire cosmos. This is the name of that God – this Om [Swamiji again chants Om]. You must have full faith this will bring results. Hesitatingly, with doubt, you should not do that. Nothing can be achieved by doubt.

Think: I am sitting on the bank of the holy Ganga. The sacred breeze of the Ganga is blowing over me. I am sitting here at the foot of the holy Himalayas, the most blessed place. I am sitting in a most blessed place. All the karmas, all the papas, whatever you have committed will vanish by staying in the atmosphere of this place. The very atmosphere will destroy all the sins, but if you do meditation and chanting of Om like this, still better.

But you must have faith: “I am certainly sure that I will get what I want.” You should not have doubt.

A visitor: Swamiji, I could see light, I could see everything, and I could get into my stance within 2-3 seconds after sitting, but then thereafter it started reducing.

Swamiji: This method that I have suggested to you, continue for one month without break. I didn't tell you to chant Om for hours together because it may be impracticable. Chant for half an hour in the morning, half an hour in the evening, and if possible, also midday after lunch, or before. In one month you will feel the transformation taking place in you. Even a medicine you take for illness cannot act in one minute. It takes time to get digested and then pervade the whole bloodstream, then slowly you feel the curative effect of the medicine. Even if you eat food, in one second you don't feel the energy. It has to go through the proper process. Like that, continuous practice, continuous practice, with great faith: “I will certainly get what I want.” If you decide that you will certainly get what you want, you will get it. Your mind should not waver. This is what I can tell you just now.

[Later on]

Swamiji: This is an unthinkable subject. The head will start reeling the moment you utter these words 'structure of the universe'. Who has seen the structure? Here we come to the essentials of pure mathematics. Inasmuch as the structure of the universe includes the structure of your being also, who is studying the structure of the universe? This is a very subtle point we are arriving at. You are inseparable from the structure of the universe, and it has to be contemplated upon. If you are inseparable from that on which you are supposed to be meditating, a mind like yours will raise a question: Who is actually contemplating? Who is meditating? You don't say, “I am meditating.” You have gone into the universe because you are inextricably connected with the structure of the whole cosmos. So the word 'inextricable' explains everything.

It is a shocking suggestion to the mind. If this suggestion goes deep, and your understanding permits the sinking of this understanding into the feeling and your emotions, you will feel a shudder as if the whole universe has entered into you, and there can be no greater blessing than this shudder.

Do you catch something from what I am telling? What do you say? You will melt away into the universe, and you will not lose anything by that because you are gaining the whole universe, and why are you clinging to this little body? And you are actually not losing anything because you are getting absorbed in the mighty sea of the universe.

Do you feel there is some point in what I am saying? Whatever the meaning of it may be, you think over it, because when you think like this, you are actually touching the borderland of the kingdom of God. If you go on thinking like this, it will be as purifying as ten thousand dips in the Ganga because your thought is the Ganga finally. If your thought repels, Ganga cannot protect anybody. But here is the art of assuaging the troubled mind by giving it a consolation that, in the end, everything is wonderful. All is well.

This inability on our part to accept this truth, and the persistence on our part to assert our isolated individuality... You said you are from Andhra Pradesh, you are a teacher of mathematics, you are whatever you are. All these are drops in the ocean of God-experience. Reshuffle yourself, reshuffle yourself completely in your mind: “By losing the assertion of self-individuality, I don't lose anything.” Consider yourself as a river, and you have moved into the sea or the ocean, and you have lost nothing by entering into the ocean. All the rivers in the world are rushing towards the great sea enveloping this earth. They do not lose anything. They become larger. So there is no question of losing when you have become larger. If a section officer is promoted to the level of a secretary to the government, you may say he has lost the job of the section officer. Has he lost it really? He has gained something in which the section officers are absorbed completely. So there is no question of losing anything here. It is all a question of gaining more and more, more and more, more and more.

These are some thoughts that came to me when I heard that you are a very learned mathematician. These thoughts can take you up to the highest level of universal consciousness, and make you dance in ecstasy that you have got everything that you want. We shall try to achieve it, attain it, and abandon our insufferable foolishness which makes us cling to little, little petty things; and losing the diamond, we go for tinsels. The education that we have obtained in schools and colleges has given us nothing. It made us worse in the eye of these great powers, which will be laughing at us at our boast.