Darshan of Swami Krishnananda in 1999

by Swami Krishnananda

25. The Idea of the Ideal

(Darshan given in April 1999)

Swamiji [to an ashramite]: We have got a peculiar idea of an inexplicable situation which we consider as the ideal. “It must be like this,” you are saying. Why should it be like that? On what grounds are you are saying that it should be like this? What is the reference? What is the norm to which you are making reference? “It ought to be like this.” Your 'ought to be' means you are making reference to something which is a standard. Where is that standard? Who fixed it? Who fixed the standard? The standard is your own soul simply jumping and telling something.

Ideas are prior to objects. This is what Plato says. It is what Hegel also says. It is what Sankaracharya says. Consciousness is prior to the consciousness of object. The object is posterior; consciousness is prior. So all philosophers say the same thing. Idea is supreme. Actually, the supreme idea is what is called God. 'Pure idea' means pure awareness. It is not awareness of something – awareness as such.

Now let us come to the point. We are caught up in the parliamentary discussion. Where is the parliament? Where does it exist? It is not the people, it is not the building. It is a concept. Whose concept? It is the concept of the total nation. We don't know what is the concept of the total nation, but we can stretch our imagination and think that the whole nation must be wanting to think like this. That is the point of reference.

Now if you go further, this national decision should be corroborated with the international decision. So you are now going to the higher idea, still higher. The international consciousness should agree with this national decision. The international consciousness is only a consciousness of human beings, but it does not mean that the Earth is constituted of only human beings. There are other living beings also. They are to be taken into consideration.

Do we know that we are guided completely by the solar powers – sun, moon, stars, and the whole space and time? That also must be included in this idea, higher than the international idea; so you go to a cosmological idea. The cosmological idea will include anything and everything that is conceivable by anybody. You may say this is God's idea. That has an impact on every kind of decision that we are making, in some proportion. So anything that finally decides the matter is the reference to the idea of God. This is why we are unable to say what is parliament. We can't say anything about it. It is not people, it is not the building. Then what is it? So we are caught up. Nobody thinks like this. They go like the herd – herd instinct. Everybody says, “Okay, go, go, go!”

The thought of the parliament is the thought of the nation. It is not of some party like that. The whole nation should think this. That is the parliament's judgment, finally. And as the nation cannot be thought of in the mind, we have representatives. They are considered as the nation.

You will melt away completely into the cosmos if you start thinking like this. You won't be existing. The member of the parliament does not exist anymore. He is only a representative of the national thought. The individual is not very important. He is a spokesman of the thought of the whole nation. So if any parliamentarian forgets that he is representing the will of the whole nation, then he will bungle.

Every one of us is like that. We are all participants, in an individualised way, in the thought of the Supreme Being. That alone is. Every second you must bring it into force. You have to invoke it again and again, again and again, again and again.

No parliamentarian has got an idea of the national interest. The party interest only they have got. Nobody thinks of national interests. Though they say, actually they don't. Finally it is a cosmological totality that decides a judgment. Even the sun and the moon and the stars, they are all members of the universal parliament. You cannot ignore them. They decide even our breathing. How will you breathe if the sun is not shining? How will you eat? Such mighty considerations like sun and moon and stars, who control even our breath and heart and head and all that, you don't consider as existing. And we are thinking only of a few people in the parliament, or anybody, as the deciders of the nation. Everything is decided by a cosmic centre, even our breathing. Individualities have no meaning, just as a member of the parliament by himself has no meaning. He is only a symbol of the thought of the nation. This is my message to you.

Ashramite: Is this what Whitehead means by actual occasions, Swamiji?

Swamiji: 'Actual occasion' means a temporary occasion. An individual is a temporary occasion. It is not an existent thing. The Member of Parliament is not a person. He is an occasion created by the nation by regarding him as a spokesman.

Ashramite: He speaks of concrescence, Swamiji.

Swamiji: 'Concrescence' means the entry of the eternal object. Actually, 'eternal object' means a pattern that is already fixed which ingresses into the actual occasion and creates a particular situation, which is what we are.

Ashramite: And God chooses the permutations and combinations? There are so many permutations and combinations. God chooses, finally?

Swamiji: He is the determining factor.

Ashramite: God is a logical necessity.

Swamiji: Every kind of necessity. There is nothing beyond that.