Darshan of Swami Krishnananda in 1999

by Swami Krishnananda

39. God's Promise in the Bhagavadgita

(Darshan given in October 1999)

Swamiji [to a colonel in the army]: You must have an idea of what is the Supreme Being, a very ticklish subject. Who created this universe? Can you conceive what it is? Endless is this universe. Nobody knows the length and breadth of it. Beyond space and time is that Great Being. Wider than the universe, longer than the universe, it is eternity itself. There is no past, present, future in God. Yesterday is today, today is tomorrow – all are the same only. Do you read the Gita? Sarvataḥ pāṇipādaṃ tatsarvato'kṣiśiromukham, sarvataḥ śrutimalloke sarvamāvṛtya tiṣṭhati (B.G. 13.14): “Everywhere His fingers are operating, everywhere His eyes, everywhere His limbs of the body.” His feet can think, and His head can walk. His ears can sing, and His mouth can carry weight because God has no limbs. It is a universal power which can work anything. Anything It can do, at any moment, without any distance of time and place. If you call Him just now, just now He will come, not tomorrow.

But the soul should call It, not a colonel sahib. A colonel in the army cannot call Him. It is the soul inside. The soul is not a colonel. It is a simple thing, like anybody else. All the souls in the world are equals. There is no minister soul and commissioner soul and police soul. There is no such thing. They are all encumbrances created by association with social conditions. But at the time of meditation, at least, you must divest yourself of your associations. You are not a military man, you are not a colonel. You are not even a human being. You are only a pressure point in the universal force. You are not even a man, you are not a woman, you are not a human being. You are only a cosmic substance operating at a particular spot.

Go on meditating like this. Then tremendous detachment will take place – detachment not by renouncing something, but by being not even conscious of the world. When the higher thing is achieved, the lower thing is automatically thrown away. You don't have to renounce anything afterwards. The body consciousness, or whatever you are calling it, cannot leave you as long as you are still in this body and you are a colonel, you are an officer, you have got a family, you have got relations, obligations. When you have got so many encumbrances, how can you get rid of the body-consciousness?

These things must be transcended by a diligent concentration on the universal soul existence, God-being. Then this will slowly disappear – gradually, gradually, gradually, gradually – but it will again return. After meditation you again come to body consciousness because meditation does not mean merging in God. Though it is the ultimate aim, it cannot be achieved in one day because you have got karmas; you have brought all kinds of impressions of vasanas and desires from previous births. They are keeping you tight in this body, so unless the karmas are exhausted, the body cannot be forgotten like that.

But if God is a mighty parliamentarian, the president of the whole cosmos, He can simply dismantle the entire parliament of the universe, if He wants. The President has got that power. All legal proceedings he cancels in one second. Like that He can do if your heart is planted in Him. The one alone... You are alone in this world. You must realise that. You came alone when you were born, and when you go, you will go alone. No friends will come. Your property will not come. Your relatives will not come. Not a piece of pinhead will come with you. Who will come with you? What you have thought in your mind throughout your life, that will come. That is what is called dharma. Each person should realise: “What have I been thinking throughout my life?” What are you thinking? Oh, it is a very serious matter. You will say, “I am thinking of the family, I am thinking of my job.” No.

I will give you an example. A person by chance has got a hundred million dollars in his pocket. He has a hundred million dollars cash. Will he forget that it is there? But he will say, “No, I cannot do anything. I cannot think of it. I have got family relations, I am a colonel, I am doing a lot of work.” Let it be, but this will be the priority. He will be holding it like this. So ten times more, hundred times more, thousand times more dollars is God, and if you cannot cling to Him...? And how will you get distracted by little things?

You have got no relations or anything. I told you, if you had real relations, you would have brought them when you were born, and if you have real relations, you will take them when you die. Neither is possible. In the middle there is an illusion. Entanglement, samsara it is called. If you understand this and daily meditate on “From where have I come?” your soul will rise up. Then why are you worrying about body-consciousness? We are talking of God-consciousness. We don't want to talk about the body, and all that. We are thinking of God-consciousness. God-consciousness will do everything, and you need not bother about your sustenance. God will take care of you. Even your cup of tea and your food, everything will be given. God will not desert you. “Whoever thinks of Me, I shall be with him.” This is the promise God gives in the Bhagavadgita. So now I won't say anything more.