Darshan of Swami Krishnananda in 1999

by Swami Krishnananda

17. The Search for Self-Realisation

(Darshan given in March 1999)

Swamiji: Everybody in the world is searching for God. There is no such thing as your search and his search. Everybody is searching for the one Truth. I feel that everyone is searching for Truth. In a mild way, in a right way or a wrong way, or an intense way, the whole creation is searching for Truth. The entire universe is rising up to the point of realisation of what itself is. The universe is trying to attain Self-realisation. It is not you or me or anybody else. It is Self-realisation of the whole cosmos. What you call the cosmos, what you call the universe, is an externalisation of consciousness.

All people think outside. Their consciousness is projected outside, through the sense organs, by the empirical operation of consciousness. The method of withdrawing the empirically extroverted consciousness towards the universal state of its own self, that is called the search for Self-realisation, or you may call it Truth. Truth is a universal existence. It is not existing inside, outside, here, there, and all that. In other words, it is the search for God. God only is Truth.

A visitor: Why do some people find it in this life?

Swamiji: Nobody gets it like that in one birth. They have searched for years and years, and many births they have taken. They have achieved something in the previous birth. Now their search has matured, and suddenly they realise in this birth. It may look like a realisation in one birth, but it is actually a maturity of the efforts they put forth in various incarnations before.

When a fruit ripens, one day you find the fruit yellowish outside; suddenly it has ripened, but really it has not suddenly ripened. It has taken its own time. From inside it was growing little by little, little by little, and you find it out only when it becomes visible to the eyes. Likewise, everything is a movement towards this great universality of God – you may call it Truth, you may call it by any name. In Vedanta philosophy they call it Brahman, or the Absolute, whatever it is.

Visitor: But is it our efforts alone that are necessary for this realisation, for this maturation of the fruit? Is it by dint of our effort that we achieve it, or is it something that is not...

Swamiji: There are some thinkers who say that Self-realisation takes place automatically because it is not your Self-realisation. It is the Self-realisation of the whole universe, so the force of the evolutionary process drags everybody, like the power of the railway engine pulls all the carriages behind. So you don't exist, nor do I exist, independently. We are a part of the universe. This is a very important point to remember. We are not only part of it like a mechanical tool, but living vitality is the connection of ourselves with the universe.

Actually, there is only one thing existing: the whole universe. You and I don't exist. It is an illusion cast on our eyes by the space-time complex, which is a curtain on our eyes, and as long as there is space and time, you will not see God. Now, for that you have to do meditation on space-time also so that there is no space-time time afterwards. It is yourself only. Then you forget the extension of the universe is through space and time. You yourself are space and time, so how will it distract you? If there are people around, I myself am all these people. The I means not Mr. So-and-so. It is a metaphysical I, which is a transcendent I. It is the I of the universe itself. You must have heard the words “I am what I am”. It is a very difficult statement. Only God can say “I am what I am”.

Visitor: But so can a Self-realised person.

Swamiji: Self-realisation means the realisation of the Self of the whole universe. It is not your Self, or my Self, or anybody's Self. The whole universe is nothing but Self, infinite Self, which you religiously call God, and philosophically you call Absolute.

Visitor: Doesn't the realisation take place through an individual though?

Swamiji: As long as you accept the existence of individuals, it will put an obstacle to your search. You should not accept the fact of individual existence at all. It is the universe speaking to me, and the universe is hearing.

Visitor: Is there not in your history though, in your own life journey, a place where something flipped, where there was some self-centred sense, a sense of you, prior to the full realisation?

Swamiji: It was germinating, and slowly growing, like a seed erupting from the earth, becoming a little tendril, and a plant, and then large like a huge tree. Likewise, the human concept of Self-realisation must be clarified first. This self means anything – myself, yourself, themselves, herself and all that, we say. So many places you may use 'self'. These are all empirical selves.

What you call success in life is the capacity to visualise the universal Self, where your personal self is abolished completely.

Visitor: But is it not possible to see the manifestation of the universal Self?

Swamiji: That manifestation should be brought together into a concentrated centre.

Visitor: But that's not seeing, knowing or visualising?

Swamiji: It is visualising through the mind, not the eyes.

Visitor: But is that not prone to imagination? You could imagine the universal Self, which is not the real...

Swamiji: The imagination also is one way of mind thinking, and that mind alone is meditating. So we think imagination is not an adequate description, but actually it is the mind itself taking the shape of imagination, and touching some point. When it touches the whole universe simultaneously, it includes you also. So when you meditate, it is not somebody meditating on something. It is the whole universe meditating on itself.

If you can divert your mind along these lines, you will be the most blessed person in the world. Then you don't have to seek anything, you need not ask anything, you need not want anything. Everything will see everything perfectly. Everything that you want will be provided to you. Even if you want a cup of tea, it will come. The universe will provide it because you are integrally connected with the universe. But there should not be a doubt in the mind: I am Mr. So-and-so, coming from such and such a country. These ideas must be shed, at least during the time of meditation. You are neither a man nor a woman. You are only a pressure point of the cosmic force.

Visitor: But you still have your regular life to live after that realisation.

Swamiji: After realisation you see God only.

Visitor: But people will regard you as a man or a woman, and they will regard you in your various roles.

Swamiji: Those people who say like that are also you only. Then what is the problem?

Visitor: No problem. I'm saying that the relative and the Absolute seem interpenetrating.

Swamiji: It is easy to be happy, and it is cumbersome to be unhappy. You have to work hard to be unhappy, and simply in one second you can become happy.

Visitor: I'm happy talking to you. Why do people find themselves so unhappy... this ailment of seeking?

Swamiji: They are unhappy primarily due to the separation of their individuality from the cosmic substance. The universe kicks you out.

Visitor: Why? Why does it do that game?

Swamiji: It is a game of creation. Nobody can say why creation took place because you are a posterior individual, and the prior one cannot be known. The effect cannot know the cause because the cause is pushing you outwardly, and so you cannot turn your neck back and find out what is happening. This can be done only mentally, by diverting the consciousness to its presence throughout space and time so that you will not be a man or a woman, nor also do you exist separate from this existence.

Visitor: Why is there so much sorrow or seriousness or lack of humour in the search? Seekers always seem to be such a sad lot.

Swamiji: There is humour, but there is no sorrow. When you search for God, will you be unhappy? Will you have sorrow?

Visitor: Many people do.

Swamiji: They are not meditating properly. They have got a dubious mind, not a concentrated mind. Whoever is searching for God cannot have sorrow. It is impossible to get sorrow. It may look like a suffering of some kind, but you must bear it because you are moving towards a comprehension of That, by uniting yourself with which, you will have no further duty to do. Things will happen automatically. The universe does not do anything. It just is. The sun does not do anything – no activity. The sun has no hands and feet, and he doesn't speak, but the mere existence of the sun moves the whole world. So existence is itself an activity in the case of things like the sun.

So God does not do anything. His being itself is becoming. Existence itself is work, contemplation is itself action, action itself is meditation. There is no difference between these two.

Visitor: If a seeker comes to you, and you have had so many seekers come to you and ask you for advice, what do you tell them?

Swamiji: It depends upon what they are asking. As is the disease, so is the medicine.

Visitor: There is no universal answer.

Swamiji: A universal answer is there, but if there is a universal question, nobody will put that before me. They won't talk because they cannot raise a universal question, because they are a part of the universal question. There is some kind of little trick. The mind is playing a trick. It won't allow you to go this way or that way.