Darshan of Swami Krishnananda in 1999

by Swami Krishnananda

5. The Difference Between a Sannyasin and a Grihastha

(Darshan given in January 1999)

A visitor: Are sannyasins a part of society?

Swamiji: Society is an organisation of human beings, and whoever is a human being is in society. An unsocial human being is difficult to conceive. There is a connection of one person with another person. Even existence is not possible without social cooperation.

Why are you taking the name of sannyasins? They are also human beings. They have to eat, they have to drink, they want medical aid, they want clothing. Only in the mind they are thinking something different; otherwise, the social and physical needs are the same for all human beings. Society is one cooperative body. Society is finally one person only, one person. All the people collected together and organised into a completeness – that is the concept of a complete society. They should not have any difference of opinion between them. Even if there is a difference of opinion, they must be able to adjust it amicably so that there may not be any kind of rift between them, because the purpose of social existence is that everybody should exist. Nobody should die. The consideration for oneself is the same as the consideration for another.

Working for the welfare of everyone is social service. Everyone includes yourself also. Society is not standing outside you. It is, therefore, a total concept, total concept. This is rather a philosophical issue. Society is not a bundle of human beings. It is a vital, living organisation of all persons in such a way that they may look like one person. The whole humanity is one person. That concept is highly philosophical, spiritual, as that is the only successful way of getting on in this world. You have got United Nations, for instance. It is a symbol of the unity of humanity.

Are you considering that the most important thing in life is social service? Are you thinking like that? What is your problem now, which you are trying to tackle? What problem? What is the question?

Visitor: Same I asked you. Tell me, what is your concept of society?

Swamiji: I have told you already. It is like one human being. The cooperation among human beings should be so complete that finally it should look like one mind working, like a family. In a family there are four or five people, but they think through one mind. There is no clash between the thought of one person and another. Like a state government – the state government is one mind, working through the Chief Minister. Though the Chief Minister may look like a human being, but he is operating through the entire personalities of the state and he works with one mind. The Prime Minister is one mind, which includes the minds of the whole country. The judge in a court is one mind, including the national concepts available anywhere. Society is Divine Being. It is God Himself manifest.

Visitor: Tell me one thing: How do you differentiate between a sannyasi and a grihasth? What is the basic difference?

Swamiji: A sannyasi is a person who lives for the purpose of realising God Almighty. That is his great aim. But ordinary human beings do not aim for that. They have ulterior motives. They live for wealth, comfort and long life, and all that. The main aim of a sannyasin is God-realisation. Though he passes through the other requirements of human life – food, clothing, sleep, etc. – the aim is not just living in the world. Somehow getting on – that is not the aim of a sannyasin. He wants to achieve something, and his main aim is to reach the Supreme Creator of the universe. That is what they call God-realisation. That distinguishes a sannyasin from other people.

Visitor: I don't know how far I am right, but I feel that the life of a grihasth is much more difficult than a sannyasi, and they have to face challenges.

Swamiji: In one way you are right. In one way what you say is correct, but not entirely correct. The sannyasin's life is not ordinary. He has to face tremendous hardships in the inner world. The householder faces hardship in the outer world, whereas the sannyasin faces hardships in the inner world. He cannot simply jump into God like that. He has to pass through various stages of internal agonising suffering, and only a sannyasin will know what are those sufferings.

The external sufferings are, of course, many in the case of a householder because there is disparity among human beings even in a family, and to bring them together into a sort of unity is very difficult indeed. But a sannyasin's life is not easier. Very difficult it is. Only a person who knows how the mind works can understand how a sannyasin thinks.

The householder's thought is circumscribed either by family or a community or some location or some particular work or duty, but a sannyasin's duty is the whole world's operations. Whereas a person ordinarily may be considered as a citizen of some place or one country, one nation, the sannyasin considers himself as a citizen of the whole universe. He belongs to everybody. In the householder state, you say 'my brother, my son, my sister', and all that. A sannyasin will not speak like that. He is the property of anybody. He is sustained by the welfare forces of the whole universe. He is a demigod, a sannyasin, not an ordinary person. A sannyasin is not a beggar. He is a very great soul. He represents divinity in this world, and the distinction between a sannyasin and a householder is this much: A householder concerns himself or herself only with this world, whereas the sannyasin concerns himself or herself with the superior world – ultimately, God. It is not that the sannyasin life is simple. Very difficult.

Visitor: Do you have any proof to say that some Transcendental Being exists in this universe?

Swamiji: How do you exist? How do you know that you are existing? You prove that you are existing. Have you got proof that you are existing?

Visitor: Isn't that the same as 'I think; therefore, I exist'?

Swamiji: You think that you are existing, and therefore you are existing. Is it so? Can you believe that whatever one thinks really exists? You can think anything, and it must exist. You are studying some philosophy? There was a philosopher in the West who declared: “I think; therefore, I am existing.”

Visitor: Descartes.

Swamiji: The very thing that you consider as existing, confined to your limited personality, that very thing expanded will become a form of God. You are existing, I am existing, this is existing, that is existing, a tree is existing, a mountain is existing, the sun is existing, so everything is existing. And you are conscious that you are existing. Similarly, you must concede that all the other things which have existence also have a right to be conscious of themselves, and the whole universe is ablaze with Self-consciousness. That consciousness which is immanent in the whole universe, comparable to the consciousness immanently present in your own body, that total consciousness of the whole cosmos is what we may consider as God. So it is the higher self of your own being. God is not sitting outside you. It is a final, highest expansion of your consciousness of “I think; I exist.” This logic can be applied to everybody. Everybody says, “I think I am existing.” If you expand it to the entire universe, that being is God, so He is only the higher self of your own being. So there is no difficulty in reaching God. You are reaching yourself only, in a more purified form.

Visitor: Last, but not the least: Is this ashram open for all?

Swamiji: This is a very large institution of Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj. Large, large, large means it has extended itself to the corners of the whole world. Swami Sivananda is the founder of this ashram, and he is a Godman. His name is known to everybody, practically, in the whole world, and we are all his humble disciples, following his footsteps.

The great ideal set forth before everybody by Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj is: God-realisation is the aim of life. It is of primary importance. Every other duty tends towards the fulfilment of this greatest duty, which is God-realisation. Even if you eat and drink and sleep and work and go to the factory, office, anywhere, all these activities of yours are part and parcel of the total movement of your consciousness towards God, always. Everything is inundated by God. There is no place, no work, no thought, no activity minus God's presence.

Our concept of God should be clear. It is not some person sitting somewhere in some high heaven. It is the whole universe vibrating in its totality, which includes yourself and everybody, and so it includes society. It includes every living being. It includes even subhuman beings. Every plant, every tree, all the solar system is all the limbs of the activity of this Great Being. So thinking God means total thinking. It is not thinking something, but thinking everything as if it is blended into a mass of complete existence. When you think, you must think everything. That is the meditation – total thinking. You should not exclude anything. Many people think they meditate on one thing, excluding something else. You cannot exclude, because that excluded thing also is a part of the mental operation only. Just I am digressing a little bit to another subject.

So God exists, because you are existing. You yourself are the proof of the existence of God. The expanded dimension of your own existence is God-existence expanded to infinity, so He is infinite existence. Whereas you are individual existence, God is infinite existence. It is total existence and immortal existence, deathless.

Visitor: Thank you, Swamiji.