Darshan of Swami Krishnananda in 1999

by Swami Krishnananda

3. The World Is a Joke of God

(Darshan given in January 1999)

Swamiji: There is no universe at all, really speaking, because the big size of the universe, which terrifies us, is an illusory perception of our mind. We are not seeing things properly. We are seeing actually one point only. That point looks like such a big balloon. The balloon is a good example. So big balloons are there, but if you remove the content inside, it is like this only.

And why are we frightened about the size of this universe? It is because we ourselves are involved in this balloon-like appearance. We are as unsubstantial in our personality as the universe is. The perceiver and the perceived are made of the same stuff. You are not a superior person to judge the universe in its essential character. The subject and the object both arose from this one point, so there is no superior or inferior. So there is no question of anyone judging the universe, and you should not say anything about it because whatever you say is a corroboration of the error involved in the perception itself. All our perceptions are wrong perceptions, and as there is no one to know it is a wrong perception, it gains greater and greater strength.

Who is to know that there is something wrong? The person who is going to find out that there is something wrong is himself in the wrong, so there is no knowing this mystery. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad also corroborates this Big Bang, without using that word: “The one split into two, the positive and the negative.” The Manusmriti, the Mahabharata also corroborate this. The universe is called brahmanda – cosmic egg, as you call it. They have used the word ‘egg’, but you can use any other word, if you like. Half is one thing, half is another thing. That half is a subject, the other half is an object. They pull each other and repel each other at the same time. I love you and hate you at the same time. There is no possibility of loving you unless I hate you, also, in another way. All people who love are also having subtle hatred for the very thing which they love. So there is clash. No two people can be friends. Whether they are husband and wife or partners in a business, whatever they are, these are all misguided arrangements because the One has become two. Unless the One turns back to itself, there is no peace for anybody. That turning back from the two to the One is the practice of yoga. That is the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, Chhandogya Upanishad, Mahabharata, and Manusmriti. The perceiving individual himself or herself is as wrong as the structure of the thing that is perceived. So there is no doctor to heal the illness. The doctor himself is sick.

So the Big Bang did take place. It took place. It is approved by the scriptures. When God said, “Let there be light,” He actually split one into two and created heaven and earth. God created heaven and earth.

A visitor: If there was a point in the beginning, what was surrounding that point?

Swamiji: That point is what you call eternity, infinity, God. The heaven and earth that God created are only two parts of this Big Bang.

Visitor: What was surrounding the point?

Swamiji: The space is inside that point.

Visitor: There was nothing but the point?

Swamiji: Only the point. Everybody – I, you, your grandfather – everybody is inside that. So nobody can make a statement. Therefore, yoga practice is very difficult. To turn the whole table round and think in a different way altogether, topsy-turvy to the normal perception that we are having, humanly is not possible. That's all I can say. It is impossible to reach God so easily, because who can believe that the whole vast universe of magnanimous and magnificent presentations are in a dot? You will go mad by thinking like that, but it is true. And in Tantra Shastra – you know Tantra Shastra?

Visitor: I’ve heard of it.

Swamiji: It believes in the same thing. There is only a dot in the beginning – bindu, they call it. Every scripture seems to be going to this point only. One dot was there, bindu, and it split, and with a nada, a bang, like that. Bindu, nada, kala – all these words are used in Tantra Shastra. The dot became a vibration – you call it a bang – and it became spread out as space and time and objects, etc. Neither space is there nor time is there nor objects are there nor you are there. God only is there. He is playing a big drama, and He is the perceiver of the drama, He is the actor in the drama, He is the audience of the drama.

If we think like this, all the sins that we committed, if at all, will be destroyed. You don’t go on doing japa mala, temple worship, bell ringing. Nothing is necessary. We are basically erroneous in our perceptions and our thoughts. We are thinking topsy-turvy because this creation itself is a topsy-turvy thing, upside down. And who will return it, make it straight? Only God can do that work. So if you can manufacture within yourself a capacity to think as God thinks – don’t think as a devotee thinks, and all that. There are no devotees; only God is. Let God think as He always thinks. You will evaporate at that time if you go on thinking like this: God is thinking, God is thinking. Who is thinking God? God is thinking God. Where am I? There is no me. God is omnipresent. The omnipresent will not permit the existence of another thing because if there is another thing, He will not be omnipresent. So our presence as an individual is also an illusion. We are caught up in an utter delusion, like perceiving water in a mirage.

But we have no time to think all these things. We are too-busy people, busy in doing some hopeless things. We are only adding salt to the wound of this mischief that has taken place. Any kind of activity cannot take you to God. It is not possible. The Bhagavadgita has categorically mentioned that any study, Veda, scripture, whatever it is, tapasya, or torturing the body, and studying, charity – nothing will benefit you to see this Cosmic Form. When He showed the Cosmic Form in the Bhagavadgita, He made this statement: “No activity of any kind, whether it is religious or secular, can enable you to see this form.” You have to think that form as that form thinks itself.

The brain will melt if you think like this. But it is good that it melts, and returns to that point which is God.

Another visitor: Swamiji, may I ask a question? How do you interpret, because it is written here, “God became man so that man may become God”?

Swamiji: There is no man at all. It doesn’t exist. Only God exists. He is parading himself as man, woman, lizard and snake and mosquito, and all that. God plays, says the Brahmasutra. The world is a play of God. He is not creating the world; He is playing, joking – playing like a child sucking its thumb and very happy with itself. It will look at the mirror and it will see itself only in the mirror. In the Srimad Bhagavata it is said God is seeing Himself in the mirror of space and time.

You are a finger of God, you are an eye of God, you are a leg of God, whatever it is. The human mind is not intended to think of God because you have used the word ‘human’. You should not use such words. You are as divine as God Himself. Can you assert that? Or you are afraid? Why are you afraid? “I am as divine as God Himself. I have not committed any mistake. I have not harmed anybody. I am not corrupt. I am honest. I am pure. I am divine.” Can anybody assert that? If you assert that, you will really become that. But why do you condemn yourself: “I am a poor nothing,” and all that? You are not a poor nothing. You are everything. As you think you are, that you will become. The world cannot bind you, because it doesn’t exist, finally, and you also, in this form, don’t exist. And don’t think anything else. Only this thought must be there. You cannot cut a joke with God. You must be very serious with Him. “O God, if there is a God, please come and bless me” – this kind of dubious prayer is no good.

You will shudder, as if an electric shock has been given to you, by thoughts of this kind. When God enters, this shell of the universe will break into pieces. There will be no universe. It is like waking up from dream. You have a nightmare in dream, you have seen all kinds of things, the whole universe you have seen in dream. When you wake up, “Oh, unnecessarily I toiled in the dream world. I raised a family, I borrowed money, I purchased land and property, I worked hard.” All these go to nothing when you wake up. You take a deep sigh: “Oh, it is not there at all!” So likewise, this universe will vanish before God-thought. It is not here. Even now it is not there, so it is not that afterwards it will not be there.

The past, present and future is a joke of God. The joke has no meaning. The Brahmasutra is very clearly telling that it is a joke that He is playing with Himself only because He cannot play with anybody else. He is alone. And why He is playing the joke, nobody knows. Lokavattu līlākaivalyam (B.S. 2.1.33). There is a sutra in the Brahmasutra. It is like a child playing, that’s all; and you cannot take it very seriously, except as a play – a play of God, by God, for the sake of God, in God. There is no word, no word for this. You will dance in ecstasy if this idea enters into you. You will not sit quiet. You will simply do like this: “I can’t contain myself!” You must have also the receptive capacity to allow God to enter you.

So this is my lecture to you, if you call it a lecture. I am expressing what I am thinking in my mind, and it may do some good to you.

Visitors: Thank you, Swamiji.