Facets of Spirituality

by Swami Krishnananda

Compiled by S. Bhagyalakshmi

December 18, 1978

(Today's diary is not from any recorded tape, but has been actually written in the customary style of a diary).

To begin with, there were just three or four visitors only. As the morning proceeded more visitors came, but it was a floating crowd of hardly 10 in all.

This morning's darshan had come after an interval of nearly 10 days, excluding Sundays when in any case Revered Swamiji does not give morning darshan.

A sadhak disciple began the conversation by asking about the division of the chapters of Durga Saptasati. The question was if all the slokas (stanzas) and mantras (hymns) of Devi, should as a rule be treated as three separate portions. Revered Swamiji replied that it was because they were addressed to Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati. Were the chapters then spoken from different aspects? No. The three deities were the three stages of consciousness—tamas, rajas and sattva—reached in an ascending order.

Sadhak: Are the chapters then suitably written to tamas, rajas and sattva?

Swamiji: No, because they are all one. It is our incapacity to see all three as one that brings in the distinction. It is the same one guna that appears as tamas, rajas and sattva.

Sadhak: Then the number of slokas in each portion has no meaning as so many mantras? The numbers vary, unlike in the ashtottara and sahasranamavalis.

Swamiji: There is no significance in the number as such of the slokas. It is all one continuous mantra of prayer to one deity only.

Swamiji: There is a figurative description of the karmas of the individual, his prarabdha waiting for the jiva, like a king who is awaited by this vassals. But there is also this logic. For instance, under the circumstances of suicide when the subconscious is shocked it results in the restlessness of that particular jiva: its astral body.

An ashramite. Why should the latter eventuality occur when the former condition is already a fact?

Swamiji: That happens because the soul is ignorant of its destiny. Under the circumstances of deaths due to accident or suicide, and the like, the soul is restless.

Ashramite: But why does not the prarabdha come into action?

Swamiji: The prarabdha will act at the proper time and place. Till then it will await its turn. The prarabdha of every individual is written at his birth, even while in the womb. And it awaits the right time and place for it to come into play. The whole tree is in the seed. But you cannot expect it to come forth as soon as you put the seed in the earth. All conditions for its growth must be present. There must be rain for the seed to sprout. It is our ignorance that makes us incapable of seeing the whole picture—from birth to death. Even the moment of death is written up in the womb. If we have the capacity to see into time, we can see the working of the whole cosmos. There is no present and past, we are used to think in such terms. If it were not for your ignorance you will see the whole history of the individual personality even in the new-born child.

Ashramite: Why do we suffer Swamiji? What is the cause of suffering?

Swamiji: It is the incapacity to adjust oneself to things that is the cause of suffering. It is the lack of union between the intellect and the act. Suffering is the reaction to an action. When feeling merges into intellect it is philosophy. It is the practical philosophy of adaptation. Otherwise, it is armchair philosophy. The art of seeing things as God sees is the real spiritual life, nothing else is spiritual life. To God everything is perfect. Everything, at every time and everywhere is perfect. It is very difficult to think like this. If every day for five hours, you can think like this, you can grind this thought into the mind. Otherwise it vanishes into thin air like mist before the sun. You see the difference between this and that, you and the others, only due to space and time and the projection of your mind. Our trouble is that we are unable to see things as they are. You see everything as outside yourself. It is this separation in space-time that is the root of all our sufferings. If you abolish the feeling of separatedness, suffering also goes. You abolish the cause and the effect also goes.