Darshan of Swami Krishnananda in 1999

by Swami Krishnananda

2. God Is Law, God Is Vibration

(Darshan given in January 1999)

A visitor [a judge]: ...what we identify as God.

Swamiji: When you pray, to whom do you pray?

Visitor: In general, to the Almighty.

Swamiji: 'Almighty' means 'omnipresent, everywhere'. You think over this matter: “I am praying to That which is everywhere.” Go on telling mentally to yourself: “I am praying to That which is everywhere – not in the high heaven, everywhere.”

A thing that is everywhere must also be everything: “I am praying to That which is everything.” Everything includes you also. To whom are you praying? By deductive logic you come to a conclusion. If That to which you pray is everywhere – and therefore, it is everything – it is you also. Then who is praying? To whom? The mind will become still. That which is everything is praying to itself.

Actually, here the question of prayer doesn't arise. It is just Being conscious of itself. God is conscious of Himself, and there cannot be a consciousness of anything else in God because outside God nothing exists. “I am the all.” That is the awareness of God. You are also inseparable from Him. You must deeply feel it also, not merely recitation.

Do you study the Bhagavadgita? No?

Visitor: Well, not regularly. I've read it but...

Visitor: Whatever little you do should be regular. Even if it is very little – you are doing something for a minute only – that also must be regular. Why should it not be regular? You give the least time to it, and the least time you can spare every day. Don't be miserly in this. Give some liberty to God also. People are misers always. There was a person doing worship of Ganesha Bhagavan, and he had a murti of Ganesh Bhagavan made of gur. It is humorous thing. When you do a puja, you have to offer some naivedyam, some offering to God. He had nothing with him. He took a piece of gur from that image itself and offered it. So much miserly! [Laughter] Like that, we are offering to God only that which He has given to us. You have no property here; it is His only, and you are giving that back to Him. People offer prayer like this: O Lord, I am offering to You that which You give to me.

God is an impossible concept. It will simply transvaluate the whole thing in the world, and it is something like a philosopher's stone that, by the very touch of it, iron becomes gold.

People do not know the benefit that will accrue to them by inviting the presence of God into their heart. They think, “This is an old grandmother's story. When I am retired, afterwards I will do that. Now I am very busy. I have no time.” Even when you are busy, you can invoke Him, and He will increase your capacity to work, and allow you to go along the right path. You will be able to think impersonally when God enters you.

We are thinking in terms of personalities – you, I, he, she, it, and all that. There is no such thing. The universe is a total whole. It is an interconnected organism, one living being. It is an interconnected organism; therefore, nothing is outside it. Now again I have come to the point: The world is not outside. It is one total living body, of which we are like little cells sticking to it. As many cells make this body of ours, the whole universe is made up of little, little cells of individualities, which includes ourselves also. So however much you may think about this matter, and in whatever way you may think, you cannot escape the conclusion that the world is not outside you. Again and again you will fall on that conclusion only.

To think of God, time is not necessary. Does anybody require time to breathe? “I am so busy, I cannot breathe” – sometimes people say like that. We don't require time to see with the eyes. Automatic actions are taking place in the body. Does the heart require time to operate? Suppose the heart says, “I have no time; I am very much tired now”; what will happen? Every limb of the body gets fatigued, and we take rest in sleep also. But why is it that the heart does not sleep? Why the breathing process does not sleep? We are fast asleep, we are snoring, but the breathing process and the heart will not snore. They are guarding us like watchmen. What is this mystery? When every part of the body is sleeping, how is it that the heart is not sleeping? What is the reason for it? Can anyone give an answer to this? Who has ordered the heart to continue? The man is sleeping; okay, let him sleep, but you don't. Now who has told the heart to do that?

There is a superior power which maintains us, to whom we are filled with egoism, unnecessary ahankara: “Everything I will do. What do you think I am? I will do everything.” You cannot even lift a finger unless the order comes from the Centre of the universe. We require a new education, really speaking. Our position in this universe is to be known by every person. This is the civics or the politics of the cosmos. Every person living in a country must know the law of the country. Ignorance of law is no excuse. So here also is the same thing. Ignorance of cosmic law is not an excuse: “I do not know anything. I don't know.” This kind of talk is no good. You will be punished by the law about which you have total ignorance. “I made a mistake. I didn't know.” You should not say like that. You must know. A person does illegal things, not knowing that it is illegal, so will they exonerate him like that? Okay, now you learn a lesson the second time.

One of our swamis went to America. He didn't know American law. He parked the car in a wrong place. Immediately a policeman came and said, “What is your name?”

“What is the matter? I don't know what you are asking.”

“I will put a challan,” he said.

“I don't know. You see, I have just now come here.”

“You say this in the court,” he said. “Don't talk to me.” He gave the challan, and went away. “Whatever you have to say, you tell the court.” Law is law, and rule is rule. You should not say, “I didn't know,” and all that. Now who asked you to come here, to a place whose law you don't know? You touch fire, not knowing that it is fire. Fire burns; water drowns. Everybody should know that it is so.

The whole world is nothing but law operating. It is a force that is working. The world is not made up of physical objects. They are only phases of law operating. The weighty and heavy posture of this world is an illusion. There can be a feeling of weight even if there is no weight, due to some force acting. Suppose, by chance, one touches a high-tension wire. I don't know if anybody has an experience of that. It will cause such a jerk, and one will feel as if some heavy mountain is hanging on the hand. There is no mountain or anything, no solid objects. The force itself created the impression of there being a huge, heavy mountain. Like that, the solid objects of the world are all condensations of force, and forces are nothing but laws of the universe operating. Actually, God is nothing but a law operating – harmonious, ubiquitous, all-pervading, interconnected, impartial law.

These are all meditations I am telling you. I am not telling you a story. This is a kind of meditation. It removes the wrong idea in your mind that you are friendless, that you are alone, people are troubling you, the world is wretched, corrupt. All these things you say because you have not entered into the cause of the problem of the world. You see the effect only. Something is wrong. That is the effect. But that wrong action has been motivated by a cause. That cause must be found out: Why it has taken place? What is the reason?

Is man basically vicious? Why do people behave in a vicious manner sometimes? If one can behave like that, another also can behave like that. Is there basic evil in the world, or it is a kind of miscalculation by the human mind, an error of perception and thinking? That is the causative factor of the effect that we see in the form of error and evil, etc. Many people, theologians, say the world is evil and you must be rid of it as early as possible.

Evil is not an object, you cannot see it anywhere. But people say evil exists. Where is it sitting? It must have a place to sit. Anything that is existent must have a location. Now, if evil really exists, it must have a location. Where is it located? Is it pervading the whole universe? The world is evil, people say. Evil is an operation of consciousness. A distorted, twisted, topsy-turvy operation of our own consciousness is an evil. The very idea that you are outside the world is an evil. From that, every other evil follows.

The solution is, you must be impersonal. Take a thing from the point of view of its own existence. You enter into the person, in order to judge that person. He is sitting there. You enter into him, and think as he is thinking. Then what do you feel at that time? You will not see that person existing at all because he is yourself only. This is a way of impersonal thinking. 'Impersonal' means not understanding anything in a particular manner, but in a cosmical, interrelated manner.

You are a judiciary of the highest order. A judge has no friends and enemies. He may hang a person under certain circumstances, but he has no anger. He does not curse the man in anger. Calm and quiet, poised like the sublime ocean is the judge. The ocean acts not with anger. When a cyclone blows, it doesn't blow with anger against anybody. I am giving you an example of impersonal action. Why does not the judge get angry with the person who has been sentenced? It is because then the judge becomes a person. The judge is not a person. He is the law of the country operating. The whole country is operating through him. This is not one person pronouncing some judgment. The entire nation's objective and operational procedure is speaking through the mouth of this great judge. Am I right? The whole country is speaking through the judge. So it is not this judge said this, and that judge said that. It is not like that. The judge is an operating medium of the law which constitutes the whole nation. That's why his word is considered final.

Everything is impersonal in this universe. Personality doesn't exist. Wherever there is personality, there is clash of purposes. The highest principle of impersonality is God – you may call him Rama, Krishna, or whatever name you give. It is immaterial. That which is pervading all places and envelops all things, which constitutes all things including your own self, that Being, the Almighty, is inseparable from yourself.

Close your eyes and meditate: “I have come from That, and I am made up of That. I am inseparable from That. I am That.” This is the outcome of impersonal thinking. Every thought is a total thought. A judge is a father of the nation. He pronounces the words of welfare for everybody.

All these are difficult things to think. All these ideas cannot enter the mind of every person because of distractions of various types, so at least we must have some scripture to read, like Gita, for instance. They are words of wisdom of the highest nature, highest character. Go on reading, reading, reading again and again, again and again. Then the ideas generated at the time of reading will have an impact upon yourself, and you will be forced to think like that only. It is a japa.

[Swamiji chants Om] Chant Om for fifteen minutes every day. It will bring peace to the mind. It will be a uniform vibration in the whole body. Ordinarily, there are dissipated vibrations in the system. That's why sometimes we feel pain here, pain there, and all that. This will equalise the forces. This is the name of God, actually. God has no particular name. Om is the God because Om does not belong to any particular alphabet. It is not a letter. It is a vibration. Finally, I told you God is law; now I am saying God is vibration.

You can say anything about God. He may be law, He may be a vibration, He may be magnificent or He may be beautiful; what else can you say? He is sublime, beautiful, great, grand. Anything that is majestic and superlative, that may be attributed to Him. In the Gita, the Lord says: “All superlative things are Me.” The greatest and the grandest and the best among any species, it is He.

What can I tell you? You have come here and I am welcoming you.