Darshan of Swami Krishnananda in 1999

by Swami Krishnananda

15. Simultaneous Thinking

(Darshan given in March 1999)

A visitor: Much of the time, when I have also suffering sometimes.

Swamiji: Who causes the suffering?

Visitor: When I think I'm separate.

Swamiji: Separate from what?

Visitor: Separate from Existence, God, Truth, whatever one wants to call that. When I think I'm separate from that.

Swamiji: You can unite yourself with that expanded being in one minute. There is no distance to travel. There is no distance between yourself and that which you described as being everywhere. Inasmuch as it is everywhere, it is just here, and if it is just here, how much time do you take to contact it? Think over this matter.

We are sitting here to do meditation along these lines. That which is everywhere does not require time to contact. And you are also inside it, because that which is everywhere includes everybody. So what is your problem? You have to think a little correctly. You have to adjust your mind, with caution.

There is something in you which says you are separated. But if you go on analysing the matter, you will find that separation is an illusion cast before your consciousness by a self-identical assertion, which they call egoism. Egoism everybody has got, but meditation is the solution for this.

How did you come to know that you are separated from that which is everywhere? Who told you this?

Visitor: My mind.

Swamiji: Your mind says like that? Generally, everybody's mind does not say that. Only your mind says that. If your mind is saying that, you should consider yourself as a blessed person. The mind tells you some very wonderful thing, and so you must greet it and be happy with your mind. There are others who cannot think like that. They never feel they are separated from anything. They feel that they are in possession of everything. These are the rich people, business people and magnates in business. They don't think they are separated from anything. If they feel separated, they will feel they are separated from money and name, fame, power. But nobody thinks that one is separated from that which is everywhere. Such a soul is really a rare one. So I should consider you as a rare soul, not an ordinary person.

Now we are sitting for meditation. You meditate on this interesting experience of your not being separate from that which is everywhere, because the word 'everywhere' makes it impossible for you to be different from it. You understand me? This is very important for you to know. “I cannot be separate from that, because that thing is everywhere – in me and without me – so I am in it.” You meditate like that. Every day you do that, every day.

Simultaneously you are present in the whole cosmos. You will be wondering: How can I be simultaneously present? The mind of an ordinary person will reel; then headache will come. You cannot tell it again and again because afterwards the brain will revolve, like this. If you are everywhere, you don't know what consequence will follow.

The centralisation of the mind in one body, which is called 'me', will not allow the acceptance of the fact that you are present not only in this body but in all the bodies. All the heaven and hell, everywhere you are present. That is like God. God is present in hell, heaven, and in every quarter of the creation. There is no heaven and hell for God. There is no person also. There are no persons in the universe. There is only the universe. The universe does not recognise the presence of persons like us, and if you force it to accept that we are individually existing, it will give a kick, and then you will suffer for it. It is like a renegade. Whoever asserts that he or she is existing separate from the universe will receive a kick as the consequence of being a renegade. Whoever asserts himself or herself as outside the universe is a renegade in the sense that the government of the universe will kick you out. That is called karma.

Karma is not what you are doing, but what action follows from being kicked by the universal whole. It is a much wider sense of karma. The whole universe is acting for you. The word 'you' does not exist there, but there is an appearance of something like me and you and it, and all that. This the universe cannot tolerate. It immediately crushes it down. That is called the pain of the individual experience everywhere.

Think all things at the same time. Just imagine all things at the same time. Whatever you can imagine, think it simultaneously from earth to heaven. Can you think like that? Simultaneously you must think, not one after the other: today this, tomorrow another. Just now all things must be thought in one stroke, up to the sky and up to heaven and the Absolute. Can anybody think?

We are living in an iron cage, called this body, and the bird inside cannot fly out easily. It is clubbed into it. Very serious continuous intensive meditation is necessary to liberate this involvement in one's particular spot, called the physical existence, and make it get liberated to wider and wider levels until when you think, you think everything. That is the highest form of meditation. If you don't think everything simultaneously, and think only some partial thing, the thing which you have ignored in your contemplation will react upon you and cause mental distraction.

You see, nobody likes to be ignored. You cannot say, “These are my people; the others go to hell.” You cannot say like that. The moment you adopt this attitude, the ignored persons will react in some way. Even a tree will react upon you. If you have the idea of cutting it tomorrow, it will vibrate just now. The moment you go near the tree, it will do like this [Swamiji shakes]. By electronic media you can find out that it will shiver: “One man is coming who is wanting to cut me tomorrow.” So if such a subtle reaction can take place from a plant or a tree, what about other things?

Ordinary, weak meditation cannot bring any result. A highly intensive and superlative type of effort must be there. The effort must be superlative. “Something I am doing a little bit. I am very busy; I cannot sit and meditate.” These complaints have no meaning, and nobody will listen to this complaint. It is like saying, “I have no time to be righteous. Sometimes I am righteous.” Is there any sense in talking like that?

You are present in all the levels of existence at the same time, from the nether regions up to the Absolute. You are everywhere even now, but some foolishness has compelled every person to think that he or she is existing in one place only. That foolishness is to be dispelled by an effort which releases this tension of attachment to physical existence at one place only. You may chant any mantra; it won't work like that. You may chant any mantra, but a person is inside the prison; he has been thrown into the jail for some offense he has committed, and there he goes on chanting Om Nama Sivaya, Om Nama Sivaya. You may chant a mantra, but your whole body is dominated by the power of the offence that you have committed, and that will have equal effect as the effect of mantras. Nobody can be easily allowed to go scot-free like that. Everybody has to receive something.

“I am present in all the worlds at the same time.” Thus you meditate. “I am not in Rishikesh, I am not in India, I am not on the Earth also, I am not in the sky. The entire creation I am pervading because the substance of my body is the substance of the whole cosmos.” The cosmos is made up of the same thing which you are made of. You cannot be separated.

Actually, the idea 'I am meditating' also is an erroneous idea. You are not meditating. The whole thing and entire universal forces with which you are connected, they collectively act in meditation, like an army marching. It is not one soldier going. The entire thing goes. Thousands of soldiers go in one direction to achieve one purpose only. They don't have different, different purposes. So if different kinds of meditation, one not tallying with the other, are attempted at one stroke, it will create some disturbance in the mind of everybody. It should be an onward march, like a military. For one purpose only it is going. Each soldier does not have different ideals. They are going ahead for one purpose. Such a force they create. That is, they have got only one thought. Even if there are thousands of soldiers marching, all of them have one thought. A very interesting thing it is.

Now we are sitting for meditation. We are like the soldiers marching, you can say, but each soldier is thinking something here, something there, and there is no common connecting link between the thoughts of the meditating individuals. It is not that each one will think whatever he likes. Even if it is a different type of thinking, it should be able to tune itself with the other kinds of thoughts also possible. A soldier marching is thinking one thought, I told you, but he may be also thinking that he has got family, he has got relations, he has got wife and children. He cannot forget that, but he tunes up those ideas to the other idea of the single motive for which he is marching. They are two different thoughts, no doubt, but he has to bring them together. The soldier should not grumble: “My family is somewhere. What is happening to them?” That thought of the family welfare should not go contrary to the purpose for which he is marching as a soldier. He must be able to reconcile these two things; otherwise, he will neither be a good soldier, nor he will be a good family man. This is a very difficult thing to conceive.

Sometimes two different obligations come, equally powerful obligations. When a soldier is marching, he receives a telegram that his wife has died. What will he think at that time? Will he tell the general, “Sir, I cannot go”? At that time he must weigh the consequences of one obligation and another obligation, but it is difficult to reconcile them. Who can go fighting in the army when he receives a telegram: Your wife is dead. It is a shock to him that will upset his mind completely. But if he is intent upon the winning of the war, he has to reconcile these two aspects in a dexterous manner. Very difficult.

Meditation is like marching in a battlefield. There are oppositions, distractions. All kinds of things are in front of us, but we must be able to bring them together into a single focus of inclusiveness. No aspect of it is outside the other. A person should be a hero in the mastery of his mind. Detached you must be. You should want nothing. Only a person who wants nothing, such a person can meditate like this.