Darshan of Swami Krishnananda in 1998

by Swami Krishnananda

41. Our Movement Towards God

(Darshan given in November 1998)

A visitor: Mind is some kind of...

Swamiji: Mind is the way in which you are conscious, or the mind is the way in which you are thinking. The mind is not inside the body. People always say 'my mind, my mind'. If you use such a word, it means 'the mind is different from me'. If the mind is different from you, then who are you? You are thinking that you are the body. Why do you use the word 'my mind'? I am the mind. What do you say?

The mind-body relationship is difficult to understand. The mind is nothing but a bundle of thoughts, just as a cloth is made up of different threads. Without threads, no cloth. So without thoughts, there is no mind. So the mind is not sitting separately outside the thoughts. A kind of imagination arises inside.

A person is not merely the body, and not merely the mind. It is a psychophysical complex. You are an integral presentation of psychic operation, and also the bodily physical operation. You are psychosomatic, as they call it. But because you are not able to see the mind – you are seeing only the body – you imagine that the mind is somewhere else. You should never say 'my mind', because if that is the case, you will be different from the mind, and if you are different, then what are you made of? The mind is made of thoughts. And what are you made of? It will come to the conclusion that you are made of the body. The body is not a person. The body has no consciousness. When the mind departs from the body, then there will be no consciousness in the body. It becomes a corpse.

You are a complete whole. Every human being is an integral presentation of thought and body. But what is the point you are arriving at? What is the actual question?

Visitor: What to do with imagination? Is the imagination useful to something?

Swamiji: Imagination is a fantasy which one projects when there is the consciousness or the sense of limitation. You cannot be happy at any time, a hundred percent, because you must get everything, then only you will be happy. You cannot have unlimited freedom because if you have unlimited freedom, another person cannot have freedom because you have taken all the freedom for yourself. You understand me? If you have got the freedom of every kind in the world, and all the freedom you want yourself, thereby you mean others cannot have the freedom. But everyone wants freedom. So freedom is limited. Unlimited freedom is not possible. This is the unhappy condition of the mind. It says, “I am not satisfied with limited freedom.” You are free to walk on the road, provided that you walk on the proper side. It is a condition. You are free to live in this world, absolutely free, provided you do not violate the existing laws of the country. So every kind of freedom is conditioned by certain provisions of limitation. You would like unlimited things to come. You may like to be a king of the whole earth. Suppose somebody tells you that you have become the king of the whole earth. “Wonderful!” you will say. But that is not possible. So the mind says, “What is the good of this life? I am a small man, coming from France.”

Even if you are a king of the whole earth, you will not be happy because then you will look up: “I want to see the stars. I want to control them.” You will try to go to the stars, and moon, and sun, and everywhere. There is no end for the limitation one feels. What you really want is to live always, and with everything possible. How many years would you like to live in the world? Any length of time, isn't it? Even if you live 300 years, when 299 is reached, you will feel unhappy that now only one more year is there. Even if you live 1,000 years, there is the same condition. When 999 have passed, now you will be unhappy that only one year is there. Even if you live for 1,000 years, you cannot be happy because when one year is left you will be unhappy.

The idea is, your soul wants infinite possession and infinite happiness. You want to possess God Himself. That is what you are aspiring for finally. Until you reach God, you will have no happiness. You have lost the contact with God, and that is the worst tragedy that has taken place. And we are struggling among the tinsels of the world in order to get that contact once again. And we pursue the happiness in wrong places, while the real happiness is your contact with God. This requires deep meditation, meditation.

Where is God, according to you? Do you believe in God? Where is God at this moment? Where is God sitting? Inside? Not outside? Is He outside also? Everywhere? But if everywhere is God, then where are you sitting? Where are you sitting? You have no place because He has occupied all the seats [laughter].

Here is a very important matter. You cannot simply say God is everywhere without thinking of the implications of it. Actually, in the highest sense, we as individuals do not exist. Individuality is a link in the chain of causal process. It is a highly difficult subject. Everything in the world is dependent on something else. Totally independent existence is not possible. Anything that is dependent on something else for its existence cannot be said to be wholly existing. It is only an appearance.

Do you know Buddhism? Have you studied it? The great philosophy of Buddhism is known as dependent origination. Every minute something changes, like the water of the river. Every second the water of the river changes, yet you feel the river is solid. You are feeling like that. There is a flame of the lamp. Every second the process of burning changes its intensity, but it looks like a solid thing. The flame of a lamp is not solid. It is a burning process. A process is not an existence.

We are also part of the evolutionary process. We are moving, moving, moving, moving, moving. A thing that is continuously moving does not exist finally. So there is a conflict inside: I want to exist, but I am not existing; I am only moving. The bicycle cannot stand. It stands only when it is moving. Can you understand the complexity? Unless you move, you cannot stand. And standing and moving are not identical things. Do you understand?

In the same way, we are like bicycles, you may say. We may appear to be existing because we are moving. It is an illusion, finally. The bicycle actually does not stand. Because of the momentum of its speed, it looks as if it is standing. So the speed exists, but not the cycle.

The same is the case with our individual life. We are caught up in a process of evolution, cosmic evolution, where everything is moving, everything is moving, every second everything is moving towards a destination which is universal in its nature. So we can never be happy until the universal point, which is the Supreme Being, is reached. Until you realise God, you cannot have permanent peace. So even emperors cannot be happy. An emperor is only a phenomenon. He is only an appearance, as if he is possessing everything. Nobody can possess anything in this world because objects are outside you. A thing that is outside cannot become you. So nobody can be a really rich man because in order to become rich you have to possess something that is outside. But the thing that is outside cannot belong to you because you have already said it is outside.

Do you understand what I am saying? There is a great confusion in thinking. Finally, the contact with God is the only solution. Whatever activity you are engaged in, whatever work you are doing should be considered as part of the process of your movement towards God. Anything that is happening in the world is a part of the movement towards God. Different things and different people move in different ways, but all are moving. But because of intense attachment to one individuality, this body consciousness, we do not know that this is happening.

There was a dog walking under a bullock cart. Two bullocks were pulling a cart. The bulls were pulling the cart, and the dog underneath also was moving. It was thinking that it is moving the cart. The dog itself was thinking, “I am moving the cart.” When you are sitting in a railway train, the train moves. Suppose you start thinking, “I am moving.” You are moving no doubt, but what is moving actually? The compartment of the train. It is the train that moves, not you, but you feel you are also moving with it. So there is a compulsion from some other force which makes you feel what you are.

The ultimate solution is consciousness of God. And you said God is everywhere. Now you come back to that point. You have said God is everywhere. If He is everywhere, I asked you a question: Where are you sitting? You will not be existing. Your existence is a phenomenon, an appearance, like the standing position of a bicycle. You are actually moving to God, but you think that you are standing. Do you understand what I am saying?

So there is a miscalculation, ignorance and total chaos in the process of thinking, which appears to create all the problems of life. If you are in unity with things, and you don't consider anything as an object that you want to possess, immediately you will find a change taking place.

You have never told me what is your problem. You told me 'unhappy, unhappy', and all this. Even then your question is not answered. You have never told me what your problem is. My dear friend, you never told me what your problem is. You are only going round and round, but the problem is not coming up. You are unable to adjust yourself with the conditions of life. If you want to live in the world, you have to move with the world. If you say, “Let the world do anything; I will not care for it,” then you are not a citizen of this world and you cannot even exist.

You said something about spirituality. Spirituality is the consciousness of your belonging to everything. When you feel you belong to everything, you are a spiritual man. You understand me? Can you feel a sense of belonging to everything? You want to have everything for yourself as if it is your belonging, but do you know that you also belong to somebody? This is my brother, you are saying, as if he is your property. The brother is not your property. He is an independent person. And the other man will also say the same thing. So one thing is hanging on the other.

Do you catch what I am saying? What you want is only one thing. You want to live as long as possible, you don't want to live for three days only, and you want to have everything in the world. A person who is a king of a little village wants to be a king of the whole province, the whole country, the whole earth. There is no end for the sense of possession. You want to possess everything. You are the monarch of the whole creation. This is what you want. Everything should be yours only. Nothing should be excluded. And this position should continue endlessly. Suppose I make you a king for one minute and then you die, no king will like that. He will say, “What is the use of the kingdom? I want an endless thing.” Endless in time and unlimitedness in space, this is the nature of God. There is no space for God, no time for God, because it is endless expanse and endless eternity. That is what we are asking for. But we are so foolish, and we have been badly educated by social circumstances and cultural differences, prejudices, utter selfishness, that these ideas will never enter the mind.

This is a very difficult thing that I am telling you. You understood something, but it is very difficult. Once you catch the spirit, you will move with the universe. The whole universe will take care of you because you are a part of it. You are thinking it is totally outside. “What do I care?” you should not say. Does anybody care for the sun that is shining? Because of the sun only, we are breathing. Our existence physically, and even mentally, even financially and commercially – everything is controlled by the sun, if you properly understand the function of the sun. But we give scarce attention to it.

So this is a kind of self-analysis process that I am presenting before you. You should not go with the crowd like that, but you must have some special type of discriminatory thinking. Until you absorb God into yourself, you will not be ultimately happy. You will have a tentative flash of understanding and a little joy. Our joys in the world are like a little scratching. When the scratching stops, the happiness also goes. But there is another kind of joy, which is the contact with the eternity and infinity. If this could be possible, even if you move in the wilderness you will feel happy.

One businessman in America wrote a book: In Tune with Infinity. I heard that Henry Ford used to keep that book in his pocket always. This is the secret for increasing in business and becoming more popular, because you are one with infinity. Everything is infinite only. Even the little bit of thing in the world becomes infinite. And it is a very beautifully written book. Another book is written by a British author, James Allen: From Poverty to Power. You feel miserable like a poor man, and immediately you can expand to the status of a powerful man by the adjustment of thought. Poverty is actually poverty of thinking, and power is nothing but the power of the mind. This is psychology, this is yoga, this is spirituality, this is the essence of living in the world.

What can I tell you? So your problem has gone. Now don't complain.