Darshan of Swami Krishnananda in 1998

by Swami Krishnananda

33. Religion and God

(Darshan given in October 1998)

Swamiji: I don't get attached to any religion. I am friendly with every view of life – every view. Those views which many may condemn as non-religious, even that I consider as a stage in the appreciation of true religion. Even materialism is a kind of religion only. It is an appreciation of the values of life from one particular point of view, and no point of view should be regarded as erroneous. A child's blabbering and a genius writing a scientific book, you should not compare them like that. A child's blabbering is important enough at that particular level.

All things which you call good and bad are only comparative evaluations. There is no such thing as ultimate, absolute good, nor absolute bad. You are comparing and contrasting one stage with another stage and then you say this is like this, this is like that.

I do not belong to any religion, really. I am friendly with everybody. All views are good views, but at that particular stage only. I wish to be a friend of God, and as God has no cult and religion and philosophy, I also have no cult, no religion, no philosophy. I try to think as God thinks, if at all anyone can imagine what God thinks. If this can be appreciated and allowed to sink into your feelings, you are, in a way, on the way to samadhi, as they call it.

Samadhi need not be interpreted only in the sense of the sutra of Patanjali. It is any kind of union with that which you consider as the other. Most difficult thing! You call certain things as other than you. If this otherness of the thing can be lifted and made inseparable from your being, that is samadhi. It can be applied to anything. You can be in samadhi with a pencil, a fountain pen, a wristwatch, a tree.

The otherness that you attribute to anything in the world is the opposite of samadhi. Samadhi is just being what another is, and if you extend it further on to the widest dimension, it is like union with God Himself. But you should not want anything. “I do meditation, but I have got another desire a little bit.” That should not be there.

All right, be happy.

[Later on]

Swamiji [to a visitor]: What is the technique of bringing peace in a holistic manner?

Visitor: As a way of life in thought, in action.

Swamiji: I understand everything what you say. How will you implement it in the world of tension, fury, selfishness, corruption? Have you seen, in the history of the world, right from the creation itself, any era where peace prevailed entirely?

Visitor: No.

Swamiji: Now why are you interfering with it? The type of peace that you are thinking of is only in God. It is not in the world. The moment God created the world, He kept everything upside down. Now you are trying to put it proper. I am glad that you are doing a great doctorate. How far have you succeeded?

Visitor: I got my doctorate.

Swamiji: What is the theme that you are adopting in writing? How does it start?

Visitor: The meaning of peace, the philosophical stance, the Gandhian concept of the meaning of peace and moving on to religious concepts, and how, in the normal day-to-day life, how it is different from the idealistic vision of it. What is the ideal peace, and also in terms of the means of the people and the militarisation of society and the system state at one end, and also about the issues like poverty and the environment.

Swamiji: Who has created poverty?

Visitor: Man did.

Swamiji: Why does he create?

Visitor: Because of the inequality.

Swamiji: Now who created the inequality?

Visitor: Man.

Swamiji: Again you are bringing man only. If it is man who created inequality and the absence of peace, cannot he himself rectify it? A very difficult thing, but you are touching a vital point. It is highly praiseworthy. But God has upset the entire plan of what you are writing by creating the world [laughter]. That is the whole thing. But anyhow, God will be pleased. Here is a young man who is trying to think something [laughter]. Very good. I am glad.

So you tell God: “I am your son. Don't trouble me unnecessarily.” He is punishing humanity; otherwise, He could have kept quiet. What is the purpose of creating? Creation is the otherness of God, otherness. Anything that is other than God will not survive. So He has created a magic show of what you call creation and all that follows from that act. It is a very simple thing. You cannot say creation itself is God. He created the world. So when you say God created the world, you are implying thereby that the world is not God, and anything that is not God cannot survive. So that is the turmoil of life.

But that divinity that is scintillating in your heart is telling you to write a thesis that it is possible to attain peace. Though the world is sitting inside you in the form of this psychophysical individuality, God also is sitting inside you. Your psychophysical individuality says the history of humanity has always been a tragedy. Have you read Arnold Toynbee? He was a great master in the study of history. Anyway, I don't want to touch that subject.

So while the perishable and the unintelligible character of human history, which is dominating every human individual, tells us that... There are social welfare workers. They want to die for the sake of society. But what happens is, they die but the people are like that only. The social welfare worker becomes an object of dislike by the very people... You know the history of all social welfare workers? Either they are crucified or shot or hanged or buried. This is what society does to the people who did social welfare work. That is another philosophy altogether.

Many people say the world is like a dog's tail. It will never become straight. If you thrust a tube onto the tail of a dog, it will become straight. You remove the tube, and again it will be like this.

Toynbee you have not read? It is very necessary to read that. It is in twelve volumes – Arnold Toynbee. Now the publishers have brought it out in two volumes for easy comprehension.

There is another pessimistic writer of history – Spengler. He wrote a book called Decline of the West. It is very famous. Then you have got the political philosophy of Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau, Hegel. Then Eastern thinkers like Chanakya, who wrote Arthashastra. That is the foundational political work of India. And Manusmriti. You have to put them all together.