Darshan of Swami Krishnananda in 1999

by Swami Krishnananda

37. Integral Thinking

(Darshan given in October 1999)

Swamiji [to a visitor]: The capacity is not in the fountain pen or in the language that you speak, but in your thought. Round up the whole cosmos in your thought, and it will cooperate with you. We always make a mistake of placing ourselves outside the world, and so it kicks us back. For us, God is above and we are below. Then God says, “Okay, you mind your business, so why are you thinking of Me?” You see, the mistake is ours only. We don't know how to integrate our thoughts.

We have got thoughts of two kinds: thoughts which we like and thoughts which we do not like. But we forget that the thoughts which we do not like also are thoughts only. They are our own children. You cannot divide the family into two parts, the good ones and bad ones. You cannot reject certain thoughts, because by that act you are dividing the mind itself into two segments, and that is not integral thinking. Whatever thought comes, you bring it back inside. Make the thought single, integrated, by which process you will slowly rise up to the level of a cosmic way of thinking.

We are seeing the world. God also sees the world. What is the difference between His seeing and our seeing? We think that the world is totally different from us. People say man makes his destiny. It is not merely a proverb. It is a fact as such. You are not even one inch away from the truth of the universe. The centrality of the cosmos is dancing on your head and your mind, everywhere. We are actually just now in the centre of the cosmos. We are not in Meerut, we are not in Delhi, we are not on Earth. We are not even human beings. We are all forces of the cosmos at a pressurised point which takes the shape of some human being, or it can take the shape of anything. There is no problem.

People used to ask questions of J. Krishnamurthy: “I have one problem.”

“Hey, why do you create a problem,” he said, “and afterwards you ask me to give an answer? You already created the problem and then confirm that it is a troublesome thing. The problem is in the mind of the maker who says there is a problem.”

All this is not a question of merely hearing and reading, but deep meditation. We should not consider meditation as a kind of activity or an entertainment or some work, as other works are. Meditation is not a work. It is not an activity. It is a rising up of your whole being into its full nature. Meditation is not practised by the mind, it is practised by you; and if you are not only the mind, but something more, then that 'something more' is meditating. The soul is meditating. The soul is the total being of what you are.

We generally never use our total being in any kind of work. Everywhere we are half-hearted. When you do a work, half the mind is thinking something else. Meditation is not like that. The whole being of yours – mind, intellect, emotion, conscious mind, subconscious mind, unconscious level – everything is rounded up, becomes one force, and like a jet it will move. To which place? There is no distance between you and that place which you want to reach. It is just now, here, without distance, without time process. This conviction must be there. This is meditation.

So these are your questions, the like of which you mentioned to me: how do you bring it into practical life? There is no difference between theoretical life and practical life, and there is no difference between divine life and secular life. Nowadays they separate: politics and religion are different, God and the world are different, I and you are different. With this kind of thing, how will you get on? So this requires a determined effort on the part of the totality of a person to be everything oneself.

Think: “I am everywhere. The whole world is dancing inside me. The electrons, protons, or particles of nature, whatever you call them, they are the building bricks of the cosmos, and they are the building bricks of me also, so what difference is there between me and the world? The world is my friend, and God is my friend. We have no problems.” Then you will see miracles taking place in your life. You will become a saint in one minute. You have already become. You assure it. Don't doubt. Have you become a saint?

A visitor: Yes, I am a saint.

Swamiji: What else you want to ask me? I have taken you to God Himself just now, and you are on the lap of Him. God is fondling you.

But the concept of difference of oneself from everything else is the malady of our life. We don't like to be friendly with anybody. We don't like to be friendly with anything in the world. “Everything can mind its course. I am here. You mind your business.” This kind of thing will not work in this world. There is no 'your business'. It is my business only finally, and so you cannot make a distinction like that.

Integral thinking is a procedure by which you think every thought together, simultaneously, at one instant. That which you like, that which you don't like, both are coming together, and there is no opposition party, like Parliament. The other thought that you don't like is the opposition party. That also you bring into it, and sit on a single integrated Parliamentary unit. This is God's Parliament. In God's Parliament there are no opposition parties. There is one single...

Swamiji [to another visitor who just joined]: I was asking about the value-based matters, and you were also discussing something about it. I would like to ask you, what do you mean by 'value'? What characteristics do you expect in a person or a thing so that you may call that person very valuable? What is the meaning of 'value'? What are the things that you consider as valuable? Is gold a valuable thing? From where the value of gold arose? Does gold know that it is a valuable thing?

Visitor: Only if it has consciousness, it will know. And it is consciousness.

Swamiji: So who created this bogey of calling gold a very valuable thing? Who is the person? The troublemakers are ourselves.

Visitor: The answer is, it is the mind that created it.

Swamiji: Anything that directly or indirectly contributes to the integration of being – personally, socially, politically, in any way – may be considered as a valuable thing. Gold is valuable because in some way or the other, in a zigzag manner, it contributes to the welfare of the person who attempts to integrate himself or herself with the larger community of people socially. A gem, a diamond, is very valuable. By itself it has no value. A stone has no value by itself, except that you can build a house with bricks. A brick has a value, but it is a relative value. It is a value that arises by comparison with something else.

Food has a value. Everybody wants to eat food, but food itself is not the value. The value is the satisfaction that food, when it is absorbed, brings to the individual physiological personality via biological personality. The satisfaction is the value, not the food itself. You may eat any kind of delicious dish, but if it doesn't satisfy you, then it has not any value for you.

So the satisfaction that you feel in yourself enhances your being, for the time being. It expands your very existence itself. You feel happy, and you feel that you are better off in every way. Anything that makes you feel better than yesterday, than the previous minute, that has value. This must be thought with great care; you should not jump into conclusions. Or ultimately I will say: Only that is valuable which indirectly or directly, in any way whatsoever, contributes to the nearness of yourself to God and accelerates your movement towards the Almighty. Minus God, nothing is of any value.

The more we contemplate and think over these matters, the less it will be, because there is no end for these descriptions.

I mentioned you are connected to everybody, and that means everything also. Even the trees know what we are speaking. We don't care for them. What does it matter to us? Let the trees be there. The leaves will speak to us. If you go near a tree and say, “Tomorrow we shall cut this tree,” it will tremble. By the mechanism invented by Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose, the great botanist, you will see, like this it will do [Swamiji gestures]: “This man is telling he will cut me tomorrow.” Another person comes: “Oh beautiful, I will put manure to your roots and then water you. Oh, how beautiful neem tree here.” It will smile at you: “Oh, my friend has come!” It will do like this [gestures], expand. Otherwise, like the touch-me-not plant, if you go near, it will do like this [gestures]: “We don't want you.” You sing a music: “My dear harvest, produce good harvest. I love you very much. Oh, how beautiful you look!” You tell the harvest, the crop of rice, wheat, etc.: “Oh, very beautiful! I will sing you Malkauns, I will sing you Bhimpalasi, I will sing you Meera bhajan. Oh, wonderful harvest!” It will understand, and it will blossom beautifully. “You are wretched. I don't want to talk to you. I cannot do this work.” If you abuse the labourers by telling them that they are good for nothing, they will shrink.

If you go on telling yourself, “I am a poor nothing, nobody cares for me, I am a helpless person,” then you will become that only. You should think, “I have no difficulty. I am not a helpless person. I know as much as anybody else knows. I can face the greatest audience, if you like.” Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj used to say, “Don't be afraid of the audience.” The best way of being a successful speaker before an audience is to consider and be sure of the fact that the audience knows nothing. “The people sitting in front of me don't know anything, and I am speaking to them.” Then courage comes. If you think that the audience is consisting of very learned people and you are a poor nothing, then you will blabber and come away. Great confidence is necessary. What you think you are, that you really are. You make yourself.

So the concept of value differs at different levels. If a cup of tea at a particular time satisfies you, the cup of tea has great value. Anything that brings satisfaction, expansion of being in any manner whatsoever, even in the littlest manner... That is why I brought the small instance of a cup of tea, a very poor thing, but oh, it is very good. People become friends by a cup of tea. You know that. When a friend comes, you give a cup of tea. They become friends afterwards. A cup of tea is a small thing but it satisfies. This is a way of communication not only in society, but with everything. We are in a society of living beings, not merely human beings.

Actually, there is no such thing as dead matter. It is an age-old concept which has been now superseded by modern discoveries. Dead things don't exist. They all... There is a very deeply inherent consciousness operating even in a stone. We have evolved ourselves from lowest matter to the higher levels. If you study the process of evolution, we were once upon a time incipiently in a condition which is stone-like. From matter to life we rose, gradually, gradually. Plants have life, but they have no mind like a human mind or animal mind. Then evolution took a higher step, became instinct in human levels. It is only in the human level that there is intellect. But intellect is a great obstacle to integral thinking. It divides by the logic of higher and lower, upper and lower, and all that. Intellect bifurcates the subject and the predicate, and then tries to join it together by a verb. So that is not a very useful thing. Intuition is a direct perception of the soul by being united with other souls.

I am your soul, and you are my soul. I am not merely a friend in the physical or social sense. The souls are friends, and they will vibrate. The souls are highly conscious. They are very receptive and sensitive. As I mentioned to you, even the trees are sensitive, then why not human beings? If you smile, people are pleased. You speak a good word: “How are you? Anything that I can do for you?” Even if a man is stranded in a street: “My dear friend, is there anything that I can do for you? You are simply standing here.” Oh, he is highly pleased by you. He will say what is his difficulty here. He cannot walk because there is traffic this side and that side, and he cannot cross. “I will help you. Please come, I will give you a hand and take you across.” Oh, great joy comes. He is a friend who is in need. A friend in need is a friend indeed. We are in a friendly world, if you are capable of appreciating what friendship is. We have a dividing mind which divides ourselves also into two parts, the wanted and the unwanted, and we are caught up in a social atmosphere of divide and rule, as they call it, the British policy. We divide our mind into two parts. That is the work of psychology, and I cannot speak to you much about it.

How do you bring this concept of the unity of the soul into practical life? That is what you have asked me. There is no such thing called practical life. There is no such thing called secular life. All the political activities of any kind, with ups and downs, with things which you consider as corruption, all these are humble attempts of the soul of the human being to adjust itself to circumstance so that gradually, it is hoped, through the process of history, it creates a wider circumstance of integrality; and, as people hope, a Ramraja will emerge out of this kind of world thinking, and there will be, people say, a world government. If all the nations join together and think alike, there will be no wars. World government does not permit wars, because with whom they will fight? The whole world will change into a semi-heaven, as it were.

But two people will not think alike. Two parties will dislike each other. But it is possible for the welfare of our own selves to unite ourselves with all things everywhere and all people, all the nations.

We have the instance of Pakistan and India. What is it that troubles people? Who is hating whom? What is wrong with us, or what is wrong with Pakistan? Is it religion? It doesn't seem to be so. It is not Islam against Hindus. Some prejudice is much deeper. “I don't like you, that's all.” There is no rationality behind “I don't like you. I have said I don't like you.” This is the kind of attitude we have got. The United Nations has not fully succeeded in bringing together people of different categories because even when they are sitting in a world forum, their individualities are maintained. The individuality does not melt into the individuality of someone else. We have got world conferences, dialogues, Hindu-Christian meetings; all kinds of meetings we take, but we maintain the individuality of ours still, and we believe that our point should succeed. Then the parliament doesn't go ahead.

Two villagers fought with each other. One man said, “Water should flow through my field,” and the other villager said, “All water should go through my field.” They fought a case and they went to the magistrate.

The magistrate knew that these are illiterate fellows and they don't understand anything. Then he said, “Now you have come to me with a case, isn't it?”

“Yes, yes, maharaja.”

“And my verdict is final?”

“Yes, maharaja. But please, water should flow through my field only,” the villager said.

“Hey, then why you came to me? What is the good of that?”

So this is like “My point should come out. I will cooperate with you, I will agree with everything that you say, but my point should be like that. You cannot reject it like that.” This me that is troubling you – my point, my point, my point – has to become a cosmic point. Then you will embrace anything, everything.

Deep meditation. The only thing that we require is deep meditation, which is the attempt on our part to be united with the atmosphere around, even up to the sun, moon, stars. All the parts of our body are made up of the stuff of the stars only. When a person is born, we cast a horoscope. The horoscope is nothing but a chart indicating the effect of a star or a planet upon this child. Where the star is, where the planet is, how many miles of distance they are! From several light-years of distance the stars control us. “What is your star?” they will say. What connection have we got? The star is somewhere invisible, and it is incalculable distance. The stuff of that star, which is at an incalculable distance, is the stuff of our body and mind. This itself is a practical illustration of the unity of the cosmos. Otherwise, why do you make a birth chart? How are you connected with the planets – Jupiter, Venus, and all these planets? And the stars are still further above you. They are at an incalculable, unthinkable distance from us. You have got Aswini, Bharani, Krithika, Rohini, and all that. They are at an incalculable, unthinkable distance from us. How can they have any influence upon us? But it is a perpetual influence because the stuff of the stars is the stuff of our own selves.

These kinds of things, they are also meditations. Every day you have to think like this – before a cup of tea and after a cup of tea in the morning. “Where am I? From where have I come? I have come from my parents. From where my parents came? From where their parents came? From where those parents came? Where is the beginning of this series of parents? Which is the first parent? We don't go further. We leave everything half, halfway. We think that we have known something. We know nothing. Where are our parents? From where they came? Did they drop from the skies? This is a great question, that we cannot answer. Finally, you will find our great parents are the centre of the cosmos which, it appears – as modern science says, or as the Upanishads, as I mentioned yesterday, say – split into the positive and the negative side, the bright half and the dark half and, in a very gross form, into the man and woman relationship. In every human being, every man has a female element in him, and every woman has a male element also. That's why they pull each other. Totally isolated beings, we are not.

All told, everything is everywhere. As I mentioned in my speech yesterday, everything is everywhere. If Lord Krishna says, “I am everywhere,” we are also everywhere. Lord Krishna is not speaking to Arjuna. He is speaking to me and you. “I am everywhere. Look. The whole cosmos is rotating in My mouth. All the stars are inside Me. Look at Me.” He is not telling a story to us. It is the possibility of achievement by every person. We can also find that all the cosmos is dancing within us. It is dancing just now, not tomorrow. This conviction must be there. It is so. Go on telling: “It is so. It must be so. I am happy. I have become friendly. I have become one with the universe.” Go and do japa, just as you do Om Sri Ram, Jai Ram, Jai Jai Ram, Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya. This is also a kind of japa that you are doing: “It is like this, it must be like this, I am like this. I am sure it is to be. In this birth itself I shall be liberated. I don't want to take another birth. I have no bad qualities. I have done good deeds. I am not the enemy of anybody. I don't harm any person. I am a good person.”

Put a question to yourself: “Am I a good person? Or is there any doubt? Can I confidently say that I am a good person?” Then you are really a good person in the eye of God. If your conscience says that you are a good person, you are really a good person. What else can I tell you?