Facets of Spirituality

by Swami Krishnananda

Compiled by S. Bhagyalakshmi

October 1979: Part 3

A visitor: Is there a place for the police and the military in the scheme of life?

Swamiji: Man needs the police and the military, because he is afraid of the man next to him. There is no confidence in the intentions of a neighbour who appears friendly but may have a knife under his arm. So we have the United Nations. We say we want peace but pile up arms. Even a brother does not trust a brother. How, then, can man reach God? It is all an empty cover without contents!

Visitor: What is the 'Direct Path'?

Swamiji: It is Tantra based on Buddhism in Nepal. It is also known as the 'Sword's Path'. They leave the lower stages and go direct to meditation. This is dangerous. But even now it exists all over India—this Tantric practice.

(A youngster, a medical student from Gwalior, greets Swamiji. He wishes to give up his studies and take to spiritual life).

Swamiji: You should first stand on your feet as far as your studies and the world are concerned. You should also seek your father's advice. What you do should be superior to what you reject.

Visitor: I have been sincerely practising the spiritual path all along; hence, I can now fully devote myself to spiritual life.

Swamiji: You can be a spiritual seeker through your medical profession.

Another visitor: Why does the mind wander so much when we try to meditate or repeat the hymns and mantras?

Swamiji: Because, there is no will to think or take in more than what it is choosing to at a given moment. So the words remain mere words. You must keep insisting on, and hammering in, the thought you wish to understand. The understanding of a thought comes by repeated, continued and exclusive practice of the mind in one single thought, which is a very different type of thought from the worldly one of social relationship. But in your efforts you wish to turn it to an otherworldly pattern of thinking. This is not easy. There should be consistency in thinking. Thinking that the world is real will not stop you from getting to the Ultimate Reality. The shadow must have, and it does have, some substance behind it to form the shadow. What is misleading is to separate the substance from the shadow. What is misleading, and can be erroneous, is thinking simultaneously that there is Reality and unreality of the world. Hammering on a thought will ultimately reveal the Truth. Staying in the Gurukul Ashrama of the ancient days had a great significance. Staying for years with and in the service of the Guru helped in training the mind to eliminate irrelevant thoughts. And then entering into the world, into Grihasthasrama, did not become an obstacle in the thinking process in the right and helpful manner for the understanding of great truths. Unfortunately, modern education fails to develop this in the students. The atmosphere in which one thinks, and its suitability, influence one's thinking. The Upanishads present the greatest truths. Other scriptures only repeat their statements, but do not impart any higher truths.

Visitor: How should we contemplate God?

Swamiji: Those who are harassed by bondage contemplate God as Infinity. People who are grief-stricken contemplate God as bliss; they think that He is bliss, He is happiness. Swami Vivekananda said, “In the garden of Eden of Allah there are rivers flowing everywhere, and trees and brooks surround you everywhere. This is the Arabian Paradise, full of water flowing around and cooked hen running around! But my country (Bengal) is so full of water, with Ganga and all her tributaries, that it is all full of marshes. And, my paradise will be without water! Not the Arabian paradise!” [Laughs and all join in with their laughter.] If Bengal was described as paradise to the Eskimos, it will be hell to them! [Laughter all around and Swamiji still in the grip of laughter.] Arabia has no water and its paradise is full of water, and Vivekananda, whose home was in the wetlands, of Calcutta, says: My paradise will be dry land without water! [More seriously] Whatever we lack is found in God. God is the bank. God is a treasure-house where you can find whatever you lack. God is like a statue you can find in a block of stone. Whatever form you want, you can get out of the block of stone; you can carve the stone as you want to. But God is not a statue or any such thing. He is just Pure Being. Every statue is inside the stone, implicit in it. Even so, you can get anything from this Pure Being: grief, joy, power, infinitude, spacelessness, timelessness—whatever you want. God is an Omnibus, a 'hold-all'.

Visitor: Is instinct greater than reason?

Swamiji: Yes, there is a point in it. The dog follows you even if you kick it, because its instinct tells it that it will get food by following you. (Laughs).

An ashramite: Why can't it be argued that it is the lack of the capacity for reasoning that the dog does not understand the meaning of a kick?

Swamiji: Reason is a very dangerous weapon. Reason is a bondage which has made you fall into the hell of social life. The dogs are happy without this trouble. What is the use of that reason which tells you wrong things? That you must punish somebody, wreak vengeance on somebody, you call this really good? Whereas the dog does not think like that.

Ashramite: At least I will know by reason that I should keep away from the person who will kick me. but the dog does not.

Swamiji: Reason is like double edge sword. It will tell you it is doing a wrong thing, and yet also remember some evil done to you once long before. Forever you will remember this evil only. The evil is interred with your bones. You can never remember the good that is done to you. If I do a hundred good things, and one wrong thing which you do not like, you will remember only the wrong or the bad thing, and the hundred good things are washed down the drain. Whereas, the dogs do not behave like that. One day you give it a little bread and it will come behind you wagging its tail (imitates the wagging of the tail and the tongue out) and follow you even if you kick it.

Someone: Why does reason react as you say?

Swamiji: Because, to some extent, the intellect takes you away from reality. It is a virtue also because it can tell you what the truth is.

Visitor: Does the intellect act like that all the time?

Swamiji: No, not all the time. Sometimes. When reason gets mixed up with emotion, it takes you in the wrong direction. But it stands independently when it will tell you that it is doing a mistake. The reason has other aspects also, that it can find out its own limitations. But sometimes it asserts its absoluteness, when it goes with sentiment, feelings etc. By reason, you know that you must love all children in the same way you love your own children. But emotion says, “My children are better.” The emotions speak and say “My children are dearer to me than the other children”, while reason tells you, “No, it is not a proper attitude. All children are equally good.” So there is a mixture of reason and emotion in certain attitudes.

Visitor: Are reason and intellect the same thing?

Swamiji: Well, yes. Yet reason is the higher, it is the power of the intellect, like the electricity that is working through the bulb. The electricity is the power force, and that is what reason is. The bulb is the intellect, which is the vehicle.

Visitor: Is self-affirmation wrong?

Swamiji: When you make a statement by way of judgment, it is not that you speak a merely grammatical sentence with just a subject, a predicate, and an object, without any connotation behind it. So we should never make an affirmation beyond our capacity of comprehension at the present level of our experience. While affirmations are, therefore, good as far as they go, the only thing you must see is whether they are fit for us to make them in the given context.