Darshan of Swami Krishnananda in 1999

by Swami Krishnananda

41. Guru, Ganga, Salvation

(Darshan given in October 1999)

A visitor: First of all, could you tell me why people in India want to come and sit at the feet of a Guru?

Swamiji: Are you speaking of the Rishikesh area, or any Guru?

Visitor: In general.

Swamiji: The Guru is considered as a replica of God, and he reflects within himself the power of the cosmos. He is a miniature universe, and so even to see him is like beholding the whole universe, and the magnetic power that emanates from him is actually arising from the entire cosmos. That's why people go near him. Even to look at him is enough for them. Even to see him is a great blessing. He is not to be considered as a human being. He looks like a human being physically, but his mind is centred in the universal Reality, so he absorbs the energy of the cosmos, and whoever sits near him also will be benefited by that energy. Even to see a Guru, and sit near the Guru, and hear a few words from the Guru is considered as a great blessing. Otherwise, why would people flock to Gurus unnecessarily? There is some benefit.

Visitor: Do you think all the Gurus in Rishikesh are true Gurus?

Swamiji: I cannot say that. I am generally telling the principle of the Guru. I am not going to mention any particular person. You asked me a general question about the Guru, so I am giving a general answer. I cannot say which Guru is great. That is not proper to say anything about people. I can say Swami Sivananda, the great founder of this Society, Ashram, was a real Guru, and I have not seen anybody else, and so I should not say anything about people whom I have not seen at all. I can confidently say he was a superman, the like of whom I have not seen. There may be like him many others, but I have not come in contact with them. What else can I tell you?

Visitor: The system seems open to abuse.

Swamiji: What system is not open to abuse? You tell me. All governments are corrupt, and they are not running the government properly. There is misunderstanding, selfishness. Now, are they not corrupt? The human nature is corrupt, essentially. The human being is corrupt basically because he has isolated himself from the cosmic power. Whoever has been wrenched out from the universal power is a corrupt person basically, from a spiritual point of view. But empirically also there can be corrupt people, and we are not going to be concerned with that. Why are we going to be concerned with everybody? You consider that person as your Guru who has inspired you much better than anyone else. You must have seen hundreds of people in the whole world, and someone must have attracted you: “Here is the person.” That is your Guru. Your heart will tell you who the Guru is.

Visitor: Your heart will tell you who your Guru is.

Swamiji: Yes, yes. “Oh, here is the man” you will feel from your conscience.

Visitor: Thank you. I wanted to ask you a question about the Ganga.

Swamiji: It has a religious and mythological background. It is believed in Indian tradition that Ganga was in a pot, called a kamandalu, in Brahmaloka, the region of the Creator. Now comes the reason why Ganga has come down to the earth.

There was a king called Sagara who had many children, and in India there is a tradition of performing what is called the horse sacrifice. They let loose a horse, and it goes wherever it wishes, and if anyone obstructs it, these people who are behind, the agents of the king, will fight with that obstructing man. So the sons of Sagara went behind a horse in order to perform this sacrifice completely.

Incidentally, anyone who succeeds in performing one hundred such sacrifices becomes eligible to become the ruler of the gods, Indra. So Indra always puts obstacles. He doesn't want another person to come and occupy his seat. What happened was, the sons of the king pursued the horse, and Indra, by tactics, took away the horse so he could not go on running too much. He tied it up near a tree near which a sage was sitting and meditating. His power was so much that he was not on the ground. He was a little bit away, high, from the earth.

These people thought this person who is closing his eyes and meditating is a fake, and he is the stealer of the horse. Thinking like that, they set fire under him because he was not sitting on the ground. When the fire heated his body, he opened his eyes. He was a great sage of wonderful power. When he opened his eyes, all the sons burned to ashes. There was neither the horse nor the people. The whole thing went up in flames.

The king was waiting: “Where are my sons?” When he came to know they were all destroyed by the anger of this great sage who was disturbed, he sent his son. The son went and tried to assuage the feelings of all people, but he could not bring Ganga down. The idea was, Ganga must flow over the ashes of these dead sons. Only then they will get salvation. How the Ganga will come when she is in Brahmaloka? So this younger son was deputed for doing tapasya, austerity, in such a way that the Ganga will come down. But he did not succeed. He passed away.

Then another successor of his tried. He was called Bhagiratha. He did impossible tapasya, and prayed to Brahma, the Creator, “Please release Ganga so that she may flow over the ashes of my elders and they will attain salvation.” Brahma said, “It cannot be released like that. When Vishnu, Narayana, takes his avatara in a cosmic form at some time, he will raise his feet, feet as big as the whole cosmos itself, and then his feet will touch this pot where Ganga is deposited. The pot will tumble down. Then Ganga will fall down. That is the way you can get Ganga. But she will come with such force that she will enter the earth, so it won't do any good for you. So there must be somebody to hold it up.”

Then Bhagiratha prayed to Lord Siva: “Please, for heaven sake, stop the ferocity of this Ganga coming from Brahmaloka.” So Lord Siva tied up his hair, and the Ganga fell down. And he kept it tied up because his power was infinite. Now this Bhagiratha's purpose was not fulfilled. He doesn't want someone to tie it up in the head and keep quiet. He wants to release it.

Again he prayed to Lord Siva: “Please release it.” Then he released the Ganga through one of his hairs, and again she flowed with great rapidity, and in that rapidity she upset the ashram of a sage called Jahnu. Jahnu's cottage was wiped away by the power of this Ganga. He got so angry, and he took the Ganga in his hand and swallowed the whole thing. But what is the purpose? Now, again, Bhagiratha has not succeeded. He prayed to Jahnu: “Maharishi, please release her.” He, because of the prayer of this man, released Ganga through his ear. Because Jahnu the Sage is connected with the coming of Ganga, she is called Jahnavi. Ganga is also called Jahnavi: someone who is connected with the sage Jahnu.

She came with force, flowed over the ashes, and the spirits of the dead rose up to the heavens and attained salvation. This is the story of Ganga coming, and this is very elaborately described in the Valmiki's Ramayana, in the first book. You know Ramayana, in Sanskrit? It is written by a great sage called Valmiki. It is there. This is the sum and substance of Ganga, and whoever takes a dip in the Ganga feels confident that they will attain moksha.

Visitor: Why is it?

Swamiji: Because she has come from God, the Creator Himself. She is the water coming from the Creator.

Visitor: So the story of the creation of Ganga has taken root so deeply in Hinduism, in the heart of Hindus.

Swamiji: They can never forget it. Because she liberated somebody, she can liberate anybody who takes dip in it, anybody. So any number of dips people will take in the Ganga, hoping that they will not take rebirth.

Visitor: As a Christian, I try to think of something that has the same imaginative power as the Ganga.

Swamiji: If Ganga could cause salvation of these destroyed children, she can bring salvation to anybody who takes a dip in it. That is the case. Every Hindu believes in it, everybody. And people come from all parts of India, from Kanyakumari, from Bombay, Madras, Hyderabad. They want to die on the bank of Ganga so that their body will be swept away by the Ganga. In Benares, Varanasi, hundreds of people are waiting for their death. Great faith. Such a faith you can't find anywhere else. Don't the Christians feel elevated and blessed by going to Jerusalem?

Visitor: Yes.

Swamiji: Why not? Like that, here also.

Visitor: Well, thank you very much. I appreciate your time. I hope it hasn't been a waste of your time.

Swamiji: No, you have not wasted my time. It was an occasion for me to say something in good words. It will benefit you also. If you take a dip in the Ganga, you will also get salvation. Salvation is not only for Hindus, it is for Christians also, Muslims also, any human being.

Visitor: Can I ask you just one more question? What's the fundamental aim of this organisation?

Swamiji: Realisation of the Almighty.

Visitor: What does that mean?

Swamiji: Becoming one with the cosmic Creator of the universe, that is the aim.

Visitor: How is that achieved?

Swamiji: That will take two hours to describe it. I cannot say all these things. It is by meditation. Expand your consciousness and unite it with the whole world, so that your consciousness becomes world consciousness. You are not coming from some country, you are coming from the whole world. Your body, your mind, your soul, represents a quintessential essence of the structure of the whole universe.

When a child is born, the universe squeezes itself, and its essence goes into the child. That's why it looks beautiful. The child is beautiful. Whether it is a king's child or a beggar's child, it makes no difference. The whole universe concentrates itself in producing this child. That is the reason for the beauty of children. Beggar's children or king's children, it doesn't make any difference. And you will be very beautiful until you develop egoism. At a young age, when you are a boy, you look beautiful. When you grow moustache, then you become self-conscious and egoism rises up, and then your distance from God increases, and then you suffer in the world because of bereavement from the Almighty God. So you have to close your eyes and sit and meditate: “I am one with the whole universe.”

Visitor: It's your ego that makes you think you are not connected with the universe. Is that what you're saying?

Swamiji: That's a mistake.

Visitor: So you have to destroy the ego?

Swamiji: Ego is there, which makes you feel that you are separate. That's why all the sufferings and the world.

Visitor: When separation ceases...

Swamiji: Separation ceases only when you meditate and merge your consciousness in world consciousness.

Visitor: What can we imagine that is like, that experience without ego? Can we imagine it?

Swamiji: Unless you actually practise it... You must eat the sugar in order to know what is sweetness. What is sugar? You should not ask that. Eat it, and then you will know what sugar is. You should not ask theoretical questions on matters of public and practical life. You must actually practise it, do the meditation day in and day out, with determination, then you will see miracles take place. Miracles will take place. It takes a twinkle of a second for the whole universe to enter into you.

But you have deliberately cut off your connection with it, saying I am Mr. So-and-so coming from such and such a place. You are not Mr. So-and-so. You are not coming from any place. You are coming from the whole universal centre. If this conviction is there – a highly scientific description of meditational process – you will wonder, you will be a super man in this very life. People will see you, and by looking at your face they will know that this is a great man. You need not talk to them. Your face will shine with glory and determination and strength and confidence, and then you will want nothing from anybody. You will feel “I don't want anything because the whole universe is inside me. Why should I want anything?” You need not ask anything. The things will come to you. Whatever you want will come and fall at your feet because of this meditational technique. You become a super man, to mention the least.

But you must practise it. You should not take it as a kind of theoretical joke. Then it will not come. Your individuality should melt completely into the substance of the universe.

Visitor: Your individuality should melt.

Swamiji: Melt, as a bubble in the ocean melts into the ocean. The bubble doesn't exist anymore.

Visitor: Is a human being recognisable when they lose their individuality? What's the point of being a human being if you have lost your individuality?

Swamiji: It's a disease.

Visitor: Individuality is a disease?

Swamiji: It is the worst canker that has come to human beings. That's why they are suffering, they are being born and dying, and get nothing from the world. Nobody dies with happiness. They always go, “Oh, I have done so much. Nobody wants me now. I am going. Where am I going? Nobody knows where I am going. I don't know from where I come. That also I don't know. Now I'm going alone. My friends desert me, my wife and children don't want me. Oh, I am going!”

Why should you go like that? Why should you go with that kind of despondency? “I am perfectly all right. The God of the universe is with me and I have no problems. I will attain the Absolute Being, and I will not take another birth.” Such confidence must be there, and you will certainly succeed. What you want is confidence, faith and determination, and daily practice. No problem. Be happy.

Visitor: Thank you for your time. I really appreciate it.

Swamiji: I am happy that you are happy. If you are happy, I am also happy.