Darshan of Swami Krishnananda in 1999

by Swami Krishnananda

10. Meditation Means Thinking Like God

(Darshan given in February 1999)

Another visitor: How can I avoid disturbing thoughts when I try to concentrate on meditation? What can I do?

Swamiji: What are you thinking?

Visitor: Many things, like what I did throughout the day, some work to do later.

Swamiji: Do you know why you want to meditate, the purpose? What is the purpose?

Visitor: The purpose is to be calm inside, relaxed, quiet.

Swamiji: As long as there are many things outside you, you cannot have any peace of mind. They will disturb your mind. Meditation is not only to bring peace to the mind. This is not possible as long as there is a world of many people and many things who will disturb you always. This is a very big question.

You can never have peace of mind. It is not possible. The world is like a battlefield. Everybody is struggling; everybody wants “everything for myself”, and they will not give anything to anybody else. This is the attitude of all living beings. That is a characteristic born at the time of birth itself. You asked me what is birth. It is a separation of oneself from God. That is called birth.

A peculiar incident takes place. We were all once in the kingdom of heaven, in God's great abode – every one of you. Due to some peculiar situation arising – nobody can understand what that situation is, and only God can answer this question – there was a split from the Almighty God of little, little sparks of consciousness which became individualised, and we are all that. It is said in our scriptures – in the Upanishads, etc. – when these sparks shot off from the universal conflagration of God's radiance, they fell upside down, not straight with legs down and head up, but with head down and legs up. It is like a curse falling on us. Then when the head is down and legs are up, you will see everything upside down. You will see that the world is outside you and you are outside it because of the topsy-turvy falling down of consciousness. You are a centre of consciousness. It has somehow twisted itself into a topsy-turvy position, and it cannot see things as they are.

The world is not outside you. When God created the world, the world came first and you came afterwards. We hear in stories of creation that God created the heaven and the earth, etc., you hear in stories of creation. After that, all living beings started coming up. Man is not the first born living being. There were many other things and plants and trees much before you. But the one great tragedy that took place is you cannot see things as they are.

Stand on the bank of the Ganga. You will see your feet are down and the head is up, and a shadow of your whole body will be seen in the water. In the reflection you will find the head is down, the legs are up. You understand me? This is what has happened. In this big cosmic sea of space and time we are caught up, and we are seeing our head below and legs up. This is why we are seeing the world outside. It came first in creation. Therefore, it must see you rather than you see it. It is the cause, you are the effect. You came afterwards; it came first, so it is the cause and you are the effect. So, you must give due respect to the world, and not consider it as a material object. It is not a material object. It is a spiritual entity aglow with the radiance of God Himself. In every little thing in the world, there is a presence of God. Everywhere you will find the hands of God operating, but you cannot see it because you have cut yourself off from the universal whole.

Now the question of meditation: Meditation is nothing but thinking like God Himself. That is meditation. Meditation means thinking like God only. Do you understand me?

Visitor: Not really.

Swamiji [to another visitor]: You tell him: How God thinks, like that you think. Then no problems. Do you understand me?

Visitor: It's difficult.

Swamiji: Difficult. Then your problem must go away. When you are sick you have to take medicine also. Medicine is not a sweet thing. It is difficult, but possible.

God alone is, in reality. The original being is God-consciousness, and God created the world. From what object He created the world? There are no stones and bricks and cement and all that, so how the world came out? It is nothing but God Himself manifesting like that in space and time. So the Earth and the whole world is a divinity by itself. Everything is a divinity, and you are a part of this world.

You think a little bit, concentrate in the mind: “We have come from the Almighty God. I am part of the whole universe, and I am not seeing the world as outside me. The world is not my friend or enemy; it is me only.” What is God thinking? Stretch your imagination powerfully far, far, far above you. God thinks what He thought before creation. You may say God is thinking the whole world, but it is not like that. Before creation took place, what was He thinking? He was thinking Himself as the Complete Being – all things, all things.

You must use your willpower a little. Willpower is necessary. Strong power of will you have to apply. You should try to think as God thinks. If you go on continuing thinking like ordinary human beings, there is no hope. You will be always suffering. We have taken so many births. So many births, and this is one of the births. If we do not learn the art of uniting ourselves with the Being of God, we will take another birth, and when we take another birth, we will commit the same mistake of not being able to concentrate on the Almighty God. That inability to think as God thinks in His universal compassion and comprehension, that incapacity persists in every birth, and then artificially we create circumstances to get out of this problem which has arisen due to our separation from God.

What are these artificial methods we have created? Objects of sense. The I is suffering. It cannot see things properly. It wants to grab objects. The ear, the nose, all the sense organs want objects. They grab. For that they work hard, run towards objects that they want. This action produces a reaction. That is called karma. That reaction produces unhappiness in us, sorrow and grief in people.

The world is not outside; therefore, you cannot get anything from the world through the sense organs. People run about in all directions to get the pleasures of the world, but the pleasures of the world cannot come because they are outside. You have already made the mistake of thinking that everything is outside, and after thinking like that you go and pursue it, and want it, want it, want it. You cannot get anything which is outside you, because it is not you. You have already condemned the things of the outside world as outside, totally disconnected, and then you want them. You have made two mistakes. Firstly you think they are all outside, unconnected with you. Then after that, you want it.

This conflict, the reaction of karma called bondage, which causes irritation and agony and intense longing for pursuing sense objects, all this can be obviated by a single method. Spread your consciousness, your mind. Expand, expand. Take a deep breath: “I have been created by God, so I have the substance of God in me. I have the substance of the whole world also because God created the world and myself, so my mind is vast, very big.” Go on imagining. Tell the mind: “Go out of this body.” You are everywhere. You have mind, I have mind, everybody has got mind. All mind put together is the cosmic mind. That is God's mind. You must touch that All-mind by deep concentration. The whole universe is mind because everybody has mind. Even animals have got mind, trees have got mind, sun, moon, stars are all parts of God only. Stretch your imagination with great effort: “I am not sitting here. I am not coming from any place. I am coming from the whole universe.” From where are you coming? You go on telling: “I am coming from the universe.” It is a great thing to say that. They will think you are a foolish man to talk like that, but that is the truth. You are sitting now on the surface of the Earth, and this Earth is a part of the solar system, controlled by the sun; and the sun, and the entire system of the galaxies, are controlled by the entire space-time complex. The whole universe is one big whole. It is not made up of little, little pieces of things. The whole universe is one big whole, as God Himself is. It is a drama played by God, I should say. The whole universe is a dramatic action played by God Almighty, and I am inseparable from that. In the process of evolution I have come down, organically separated, but really I am organically one.

All the trouble is due to the mind only. I told you to take deep breaths, and then chant Om mantra.