Darshan of Swami Krishnananda in 1999

by Swami Krishnananda

9. The Mantra Soham

(Darshan given in February 1999)

Swamiji: You are saying: “I am not me. I am somebody else.” Will anybody speak like that? “I am not myself, I am somebody else.” Is it possible to think like that? You tell me. Can you say you are not here, you are somewhere else? Can you think like that? Or it is not possible?

But that is the meaning of this mantra [Soham]. You are not yourself. You are another thing. That other thing is called 'He'. You may call it 'He' or 'It' or whatever It is. That He or It or That, whatever It is, is the one thing from where you came. You have proceeded from that; you have arisen from that. That is your parent, and you are the child of that great parent. That thing called 'He' is God Himself.

God pervades the whole universe, and the whole universe is inside God. It is not standing outside God. There is no object outside God because if there is an object outside somebody, that somebody becomes a mortal, finite individual. Do you understand what I say?

God has no object outside Himself. He does not see anything outside Him as we are seeing outside us. He is the whole universe, and you are included in the universe. You are not standing outside the universe. When He is the whole universe Himself, He is yourself also. You cannot stand outside Him. As you are not outside the universe, you are not outside God also.

By a mistake in egoistic perception, the individual person asserts himself or herself as: “I am this much only, this little body, 5 feet or 6 feet long and 2 feet or 2½ feet wide.” But you are denying it, “I am not this,” because you cannot be a little thing, because you belong to the whole universe. “I am He.” Or you may say: “I am It. The whole universe is me.” You have come from the whole universe. You cannot stand outside it, nor is the universe outside you. And the great Intelligence, the Supreme Intelligence that manages this whole universe, is sometimes called He because it is God. So you are saying: “I am not myself. I am He.” Or rather, it is easier to say: “I am not coming from Italy. I am coming from the universe.”

It is difficult to think like that. Are you not coming from the universe? Or you are sitting somewhere else? In the universe there is no Italy, India, America. No such thing exists. They are all names created by human beings for convenience, but truly it is not like that. You are part of the universe; therefore, you are not as you are appearing now. “I am not this me. I am the universe.” Either you may say, “I am It,” which is the universe, or you may say, “I am He, the whole God Himself,” because you have been created by God, and therefore, you cannot be standing outside Him. Neither are you outside the universe, nor are you outside God Himself.

So this mantra Soham: “I am He.” But merely repeating this word is not sufficient. You must feel also inside: “I am not a little person coming from Italy or England or any place. I am the whole universe because I am an effect produced by the cause, which is the universe.” Can you understand?

Visitor: I will try, Swamiji.

Swamiji: Only try? It is easy to understand but difficult to practise. It is easy to understand because I am speaking plain language. Anybody can understand. But it is difficult to practise because nobody can say, “I am not here.” Nobody can say that. “I am here only.” So hard is the ego self-assertion of a human being that no teaching will be of any use to people. Any yoga you do, but finally: “I am here only. Everything is mine only. I own so much property.” All these people say this, and quarrel. But if you are the property itself, the whole universe is the large property: “I belong to that and it belongs to me, so where am I sitting?” Put a question to yourself: Are you sitting in Rishikesh? There is no Rishikesh. You are sitting on the surface of the Earth. You belong to the Earth. What do you say? It is difficult to think. You belong to the Earth, not to Italy, because Italy is on the Earth only. Why are you clinging to that little part called India and America and Germany and all this? These are only names we have coined to distinguish some specific character from another character.

The whole body is one large whole, but some part of the body is called hand, some part of the body is called leg, some part of the body is called head. This is how we are creating names of the countries. The whole Earth is one big mass. It has no country on it. The body is one whole. It has no consciousness of hand, feet, leg, and all that. It is master body. The whole personality is one single organism. When you say, “I am coming,” you don't mean that the leg is coming or the hand is coming. What is coming when you say, “I am coming”? The whole thing is coming. Can you understand? Very difficult to grasp it.

“I am coming.” Who is this I? Not the feet. The feet are not coming; I am coming. Otherwise, people will say, “My feet are coming.” Nobody will talk like that. “My eyes are seeing, my hands are doing”—nobody talks like that. “I am doing it.” The I is an integrating factor which puts everything together into a concentrated whole. That is the I. It is an overwhelming consciousness, which is your essence. You are not hands and feet and leg and all that. You are a consciousness. You are an awareness: “I am the whole.”

But this whole that you are thinking of is a small whole. You think your body is the whole. It is not like that. The universe is the whole. When you say, “I am a whole with limbs of the body,” every other person also can say that. So everybody is a whole. Even a little animal is a whole by itself. But everybody is finite, little, little beings. We are just crawling on the Earth. The Earth is so big, and if we go to a great height and photograph the surface of the Earth, we will look like small ants or even less than ants. We can't be seen at all. That is an egoistic affirmation of oneself. You look like an ant crawling on the Earth, and yet there is so much of assertion: “What do you think? I am here! I am such and such a thing.” The ant is asserting so much. Foolishness! The human beings are foolish. They know nothing; only their idiocy is making them assert that I am this only.

Now, this mantra says you are not this one: I am that. You are the universe as a whole. When you meditate, close your eyes or open your eyes, as you would like. Expand your mind to the whole size of the cosmos. Go on expanding, expanding, expanding: “Oh, my mind is going out of me. It has gone, gone, gone to the mountains and skies. My mind is touching the skies. All time and space, my mind is touching. Oh, I have gone far beyond the universe. Then where am I? I cannot be outside the universe. I am made up of the stuff of the universe.” Oh, you will be happy. “Oh, wonderful! I am a great thing!” That is the meaning of 'I am He, I am That, I am It', etc.

So you are a great person. You are not even a human being. You are a divine being because the universe is made up of divine forces. It is not made up of men, women and Italians, Americans, Indians, and all that. These things do not exist, really speaking. For the purpose of convenience we have created the geographical distinctions. In meditation, you must forget all these geographical matters. The real should be contemplated: “I am not separate from the universe because I have emanated from the universe. The substance of the universe is my substance. I am not outside the universe. I cannot stand outside it, nor can the universe stand outside me. And beyond the universe is the Transcendent Maker, God Almighty. I am He, I am He: Soham.” You may say: I am That, I am It or I am He. You can say anything. Any way you are going beyond the concept of your individual finite existence.

This is the highest meditation. If you do this meditation every day, you will become more than a human being. People say 'superhuman'. It is a characteristic of saintliness. One who goes on thinking like this and asserting, and living according to this assertion, is a saint. You can become a saint. It doesn't take months and years. “How is it possible? I cannot become a saint.” If you are convinced that you are like this, the whole universe has inundated you. “I am that. I am not this little thing. I am not me.” Go on telling this again and again. “I am not this. I am something else. I am something else.” Go on repeating also, “I am something else. I am the whole universe. I am the God who created the whole universe.” Then some great joy will come immediately. After the meditation you will feel filled with strength and great joy because everything in the universe has come to you because you are yourself the universe.

Soham: “I am He, the Creator of the universe. I am That, the whole universe. I am It.” You may call it by any name in any language.

Do you understand the meaning of this mantra? Wonderful, wonderful! Now you meditate like that.