Darshan of Swami Krishnananda in 1999

by Swami Krishnananda

12. I Am the Universe

(Darshan given in February 1999)

Swamiji: If the Self is everywhere, then what happens? That means to say you are everywhere, because you are the Self. You are everywhere. Do you believe this?

A visitor: Yes, I am everywhere, but at the moment I am here.

Swamiji: That which is everywhere can also be in one place. But that which is in one place only cannot be everywhere, so you should not say it is in one place. The Self is everywhere, and if you are the Self, you are everywhere.

One has to be very careful in living in this world. The world is neither your friend nor your enemy. It is just what it is. Therefore, you have to be very cautious in knowing where you are staying at present. You are not staying in India; you are staying in the cosmos, the whole universe. And the universe is not your friend, nor is it your enemy. Then, what is your relationship between the two? What is your relationship with the universe?

Another visitor: I am the universe.

Swamiji: Can anybody here say, “I am the universe”? Can you say that? Or are you hesitating? You are the universe. If everybody here starts saying “I am the universe”, then the whole world will collapse. It cannot stand. You will create such a fiery heat in the whole world that nobody can stand before you. If all these people seated here are sure that they are themselves the universe, and you walk on the road as if the universe is walking, then what will happen? The earth will shake because of the weight of your personality. This is not a story I am telling. It is a serious matter. If the person who is established in this consciousness of 'I am the universe' does like this, the Earth will break to pieces. Whatever that person says will take place. Whatever that person wants will come. There is nothing to want afterwards. There is nothing to want because you are the universe, so what do you want? But, there is a 'but'.

The 'but' is, once upon a time in the evolutionary process you were a mineral. From mineral you rose to plant life, from plant life you rose to animal life, from animal life you have come to the human. Yet, no human being can think entirely like a human being because the human being can get angry like a lion, feel thirsty like a plant, and sleep like a rock. So all the previous stages of evolution are still inside you. If you are wholly human minus the presence of any of these elements from the previous stages, then you are not a man but a superman. The character of getting angry, that is a lion, so you have got the quality of a lion also. You can sting like a scorpion, bite like a snake. Human beings can do that, so that means nobody has become fully human. That is why they are afraid. Each one is afraid of the other. They manufacture bombs and guns, and all that. Whom are you afraid of? You are afraid of your own brother, isn't it? Why are you manufacturing guns? To kill animals? No, it is to kill men only. Think over this. That is to say, the lower instincts have not gone. They are creeping inside, like ants.

But if you believe this assertion that you made just now – “I am the universe” – then all the instincts will melt away in one second. Mountains of mistakes can become molten and vanish, and you become universally happy in one second. This is the descent of God in your personality.

You should not waste your time in talking nonsense, going here, there, chit-chatting, and going to the market. Nothing should be done. You must be fully satisfied, and be satisfied where you are sitting. The place where you are sitting is the place of your satisfaction. You need not move about to find happiness. It is just here.

This is spirituality, this is meditation, this is yoga, this is everything. In one minute you can bring heaven to this place; in one minute you can bring hell also. If you are an object among many other objects, then there are only objects in the universe, no Self. That is hell. But if there are only selves and no objects, that is heaven. So you can think either way. In one second you are in hell or in one second you are in heaven. You make your own destiny. Very careful you have to be. In one minute the mind will shake like a monkey.

[Later on]

Years and years of effort are necessary. We have taken many births. We have carried all the positive and negative impulses of our previous actions into this body also, so often we are happy, sometimes not happy, and sometimes we have got funny ideas. All these are the results of what we have thought and spoken and have done in the previous birth.

These impulses have to be removed either by fulfilment or by absorbing them into a higher perspective of the universe. They cannot be negated. It is like a seed which is alive, and even if it is inside the earth for a long time, it will sprout when rain falls. But if it is a burnt seed, it won't sprout, so you have to burn it. The burning of the seed of individuality is the process of meditation. In other words, in religious language it is being deeply conscious of God's universal existence, from which you cannot be separate. But this is very difficult. You will weep and cry and condemn, and so on. There is no end for this suffering. That is why some saints said it is all suffering.

Anityam asukham dukham, says the Bhagavadgita: Anityam asukham: impermanent. Asukham: abode of unhappiness. Dukham: sorrow. Dukhalayam: Abode of sorrow is this world. Asasvatam: which is impermanent. It is a harassment. To be in this world is a harassment. That is one side of the picture. The other side is, it is a training ground to move towards the Supreme Being. So we don't say anything; keep quiet. You should not make any comments about this world. It is like a kind mother who can very lovingly feed the child, or can also give a slap to the child and make it cry. Nature can do either thing. We should be very calm and quiet, and not complaining. We should never complain at all about anything, but sincerely feel that we are present everywhere.

Do your meditations. It is an effort to be what one is. Now we are what we are not, and we have to be what we are. There are various methods of meditation. It is not that we should meditate only according to what things are said in the books or scriptures. You yourself are a scripture, and God is sitting in you, and He will inspire you to adjust your consciousness in the right direction. God is the greatest Guru, finally. The whole universe is your Guru, and everybody is your Guru. Everybody, whoever he is or she is, constitutes one mass of awakening consciousness manifested through the world of experience, culminating in pure Be-ness, that which is. Some people say 'that which ought to be', in an ethical sense; but otherwise, in a metaphysical sense, a spiritual sense, it is that which is, that which shall be, and that which was, all bundled up into one word, 'be'. 'Be' means it is not only your be-ness; it is the be-ness of anything that you can conceive anywhere, even beyond the skies, and the skies will protect you.

Trust in God and do the right. What else can I tell you? The right is that which leads to the Supreme Absolute, and you have to apply your conscience to decide what it is that contributes to the movement towards the Absolute. For that, you must have practically a cosmic vision of things. Every minute you must think like the universe; then only you can know what is right and what is wrong. If you think like an individual coming from one place or another place, then you cannot decide what is good and bad. If everything is connected to everything else, the judgment on the rightness or the wrongness of things is not easy to decide by an abrupt thinking from the individual point of view. What the individual isolatedly thinks cannot be right; what the universe thinks, that is right. So if your mind can coordinate itself with the universal thought, at that time what you think is right. Only the universe is right, and whoever is identified with that universe also is right. Any simple Tom, Dick and Harry should not say anything. It is better they keep quiet.

The world is a wonderful place, and also a dangerous place. It is like a knife which can cut both sides. The Upanishads tell us, the path to the Absolute is like walking on a razor's edge. A razor's edge is so sharp. One meaning is, a razor's edge is sharp, and it is not easy like walking on butter. Another meaning is, it is so sharp that it cannot be seen. You cannot see the edge of the razor. It is so very, very minutely sharp that however much you look, you cannot see it. Likewise, the path of God cannot be seen with the eyes. Sometimes it is beyond thinking also, because you are the path. It is not outside. Thank you very much. God bless you. Om Namo Narayana.