Darshan of Swami Krishnananda in 1998

by Swami Krishnananda

40. Thinking in Meditation

(Darshan given in November 1998)

Swamiji: There is no human being who can cease to think. If you cease to think, you are sleeping. It is another way. Nobody can cease to think; otherwise, it is called wool-gathering. You gather a lot of wool.

In meditation you are actively conscious. It is not that you are not thinking, but in a most superfine way you are thinking, not in the dull way as you are used to thinking in the marketplace. In a highly purified manner you are thinking in meditation.

Meditation is the abolition of the difference between you and what you see with your eyes. You have to abolish the difference between yourself and what you see with the eyes. That is samadhi. Otherwise, what is the good of sitting like this and seeing? You are seeing the same world as a harassing demon sitting in front of us. Meditation is a simple thing. It is the transcending of the difference that usually is seen with the eyes between oneself and other things – the mountain, river, sun, moon, stars, whatever it is. Actually, the difference does not exist.

By the power of will and meditation, your consciousness should rise beyond yourself as well as beyond what you see with your eyes. This is what they call 'the subject and object are transcended'. What you see with your eyes is the object. It may be anything, even the stars, and yourself is the subject. There is a conflict between the two, so that we cannot live in this world peacefully. That has to be overcome. That is meditation. It is not not-thinking. Not-thinking is a negative way. Meditation is actively thinking in a different way altogether.

A visitor: Swamiji, in meditation there's still an object though. There is still the subject-object.

Swamiji: There is no object in meditation. Then it is not meditation at all.

Visitor: It's concentration?

Swamiji: Nobody meditates on an object. Everybody is thinking of the object.

Visitor: Object means something other than yourself.

Swamiji: There is no object in this world. That object also is a subject like you. You should not call anybody an object. It is a kind of insult: “You are an object.” You should not say like that. He is a subject by himself. The word 'object' should be abolished from the dictionary. Otherwise, an object cannot merge with you. It cannot become friendly with you. “The object runs away from the subject,” says the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. You are treating things as an object means that you are considering them as servants. You are considering things as servants. They are not servants. They are as important as yourself. Instead of your meditating on them, let them meditate on us. You transfer, reverse the whole order of the contemplation. Instead of my thinking of somebody, why not that somebody think of me? That brings about a complete transformation in the process of perception.

Great training is necessary, and you should not have any submerged emotional conflict. If that is there, then meditation has no purpose. You must feel that you want nothing because you have got everything. You don't want anything, not because you are a beggar. You are a king; therefore, you don't want anything. The spiritual seeker is a king, and the whole world is conquered by absorbing the whole world into himself. The king feels, “I am the kingdom,” as God feels, “I am the universe.” So is the seeker of God.

Day and night you must think like this. It is not only one hour sitting. Day and night, only this is the background of thought. You bestow some thought over it. It is the easiest thing to think, but people make it very complicated. There are no objects in the world; they are all subjects only, so everywhere is the subject. If everything, even a leaf in a tree, is a subject by itself, the whole universe is an ocean of subjects. As there is no difference between the contents of the ocean, the ocean is a mass of integration, so is this universal subject, where every subject merges into one subject. Be conscious of that. That is meditation.

Why are you saying 'object of meditation'? These words should be abolished completely. You are meditating on the subject, not on the object. Which subject? Not me as the subject, but yourself also as the subject. When I think of you, I think of you as a subject as important as myself. You should regard everything else also as important as your own self, as a subject. 'As a subject' means not being conscious of something which is different from one's own self. That consciousness must be removed. You plant yourself in that thing which you consider as the object. Transfer yourself. Where a mountain is sitting and looks like an object, you transfer yourself into the mountain itself. Then it will never look like an object. It is a subject. Lord Krishna lifted the mountain. That is what we hear. He did not lift any mountain; he lifted himself only, just as you lift your hand. If you lift your hand, there is no great miracle you are doing. So Krishna did not perform any miracle. He himself was the mountain, so he need not lift any outside thing. The elephant lifts its heavy leg, but we cannot lift its leg because for us it is an object; but for the elephant, its leg is a subject. If the mahout wants to climb on the elephant, it simply stretches its hand, like this, and he climbs over it. But you cannot do that.

Everything that is other than you is a source of fear and sorrow. Therefore, this question of 'other than you' should not be there. This is achieved by samadhi. Samadhi means the assertion of consciousness in that which you wrongly consider as an object. The object will melt itself. And if you think, it will materialise.

There are no objects in the world. You must be sure about it. They are all subjects, like stars in the heaven. Which star is subject, and which star is object? There is no such difference. The whole thing is a sea of subjects. The stars in the heaven, angels scintillating – the angels of heaven are all pure subjects, emanating radiance. Nobody is an object. So abolish this idea of anything being an external object to you. It is you yourself. This cannot enter the head so easily.

You told me the other day, people will go mad by thinking like this. It is not necessary to go mad. That fear of going mad arises because there are submerged tensions of emotion, conflict in the subconscious. Such people should not go for meditation. They must only take the name of God, chanting, chanting, chanting, chanting. You should not attempt what is impossible for you. If the mind is desireless, it has faith that anything will come to you if you want. That mind has, that will has such capacity, it can do anything.

“If you have as much faith as the size of a mustard seed,” is Jesus Christ's saying. “If you have as much faith as the size of a mustard seed, tell the mountain to move from this place, and it will move.” That is to say, the mountain will not move like that, but your mind enters into it, and you yourself, as the mountain, start moving. If God alone exists, and nothing else can exist, there can be no objects in the world – an easy mathematical conclusion.