Total Thinking

by Swami Krishnananda

Chapter 3: The Pursuit of a Hidden Mystery

Previously we discussed that our knowledge of things indicates the presence of something which is beyond this knowledge. Our analysis showed that we cannot know anything unless we know, at the same time, something other than this thing which is the object of our knowledge. Something seems to be pursuing us wherever we go. Though our objective in the pursuits of this world seems to be the visible phenomena of life, there appears to be another factor running behind us and going ahead of us, whatever be the visible aim of our life. There is an invisible mystery which does not leave us, wherever we go. We may soar to the heavens or sink to the nether regions; it makes no difference to this mystery. It is wherever we go, under every circumstance of life, at every time everywhere, because minus this mystery, life seems to be meaningless and cannot be explained. The explanation of every experience in life is the presence of this mystery, so life may be regarded as a mystery in itself.

Life is not a science or a logic, not an arithmetic or an algebra or a geometry, not a calculation or a computation; it is a miracle. It is this miracle that keeps us hoping and living. Our desires, our ambitions and our activities are a miracle. We ourselves are a miracle in this world of miracles. Actually, religion is nothing but the pursuit of this miracle, the running after the Holy Grail and a knight errant of the spirit. We are participants in the religious pursuit, which is nothing but the pursuit of the Holy Grail of this wondrous mystery that grins at us, stares at us, and mocks us at every event we pass through here. There is apparently something that laughs at everything we do, thinks before we start thinking, and does something before we start doing anything at all. This mystery is the explanation of every phenomenon in life, and this is what conditions the whole of human history.

The process of the history of mankind is the process of the working of this miracle behind human history, but it eludes our grasp, escapes our understanding and defies our every effort to know it. While we can know anything and everything, we cannot know that thing, which is the only thing that is finally to be known. Therefore, we are the fools that we are. But this realm of experience looks like paradise to us on account of the presence of this mystery. At the same time, we are made fools, so we are literally in a fool's paradise. While we look like fools because we cannot know this mystery, we are also in paradise because of the presence of this mystery. Wonder is life, and wonder is religion.

That is why great masters, geniuses, experts, adepts in any walk of life or field of pursuit—literature, poetry, drama, the fine arts, religion and spirituality, mysticism, yoga, whatever it be—have been the miracle-mongers in the world of this mystery which stands supreme above all that we can consider as worthwhile and valuable in life. All the meaning that we can recognise and read in anything in this world is the meaning that descends as a jot or a ray from that supreme mystery of mysteries, the mysterium tremendum, as mystics are fond of calling it. Inasmuch as it is the explanation for the whole of phenomena and it is that which accounts for the secrets of every kind of experience through which anyone may pass, it has to be accepted as a universal presence. Inasmuch as it explains everything everywhere, naturally it has to be a presence that is everywhere. That which is everywhere is that which is considered as universality—the universal principle. Because it is the explanation of every particular and is the indivisible presence at the back of every related phenomenon, it can be considered the soul of all things. This is what is called the Atman in the Upanishads, and the Self in mystical circles. It is the soul because it is the explanation of everything. It is the Self because it is behind everything that is known, recognised or experienced. It offers the explanation for everything, but it itself cannot be explained by anybody else because that 'anybody' who can explain it does not exist. That which itself is inexplicable but explains everything else is the Self of all things. Because it knows the mystery behind all things, it is a consciousness mystery, a knowledge process, pristine intelligence par excellence.

The pursuit of this mysterious Self is the religion of mankind. This is what is called spirituality. We can have some idea as to what religion can be, what spirituality is, what anything worthwhile can ultimately be if this is the nature of the world, and if this is the circumstance in which we are placed in this mysterious world. The pursuit of religion is the pursuit of this mystery behind phenomena: the Atman or the Self of all things. Therefore, it can also be said to be, at the same time, a pursuit of the mystery of our own selves. The knowledge of things is also the knowledge of our own selves, and our knowledge of our own selves is the knowledge of all things. To know anything is to know all things.

Here we are at the foot of this great ascent of the religious adventure, the spiritual activity, which cannot be any kind of outward movement, on account of our aim being quite different from anything that can be comprehended within the field of human activity. All activities are presupposed by the presence of this mystery; therefore, the pursuit of this mystery, if it is called religion and spirituality, should be other than what we call normal activity in life. It is an activity, no doubt, but an activity of the spirit. It is our inward self that conducts a process of work in its own manner, which is qualitatively quite different from the works that we undertake in this world of business and social activity.

Religion can be, and ought to be, made compatible with work, but it is not the work that you are thinking of in your mind. It is work, activity, enterprise, adventure; it is everything, but it is nothing that you can comprehend in your mind at present. It is a work that you perform from your soul's essence, and not as a movement of any kind of psychic function. This is why it is said that karma is different from karma yoga. A spiritualised activity, which is karma yoga, is quite different in its nature from the activities known to the world of mankind. You cannot actually have access into the mystery of what you call karma yoga because it is an activity of the soul and not of your hands and feet, not even of your empirical understanding and mind, to which I made reference in the previous session. It is not a world process. It is a noumenal adventure; it is the thing as it is in itself that rises to the surface of phenomena when life becomes religion and spirituality.

Inasmuch as this mystery I referred to is perforce present everywhere because it explains all things at the same time, it is a universal compresence and not a particular existence somewhere. You cannot say it is in some corner of the world. Therefore, when you pursue it, you are pursuing all things at the same time. You become a person belonging to everybody at the same time, and are not a person of one family, one community, one nation—not even of this Earth. When you enter into the field of religious activity, you cease to be a man of a particular country. Perhaps you cease to be a man. Rather, you remain as an inward urge which presses itself forward towards the recognition of the presence of this mystery which explains all things, all phenomena.

Now, inasmuch as this mysterious explanation of the diversified phenomena has to be present everywhere as the Self of all things, it has to be an indivisible something which is incapable of division by space, by time, by even thought and conception. It is a whole of a mysterious nature. Therefore, God is a whole, the Self is a whole, the Atman is a whole, and this is the reason why you consider your little personality as a wholeness in itself. This wondrous, mysterious, universal wholeness explains the wholeness of any particular object in this world. Every little thing is a completeness by itself. A tree is a whole, an atom is a whole, an electron is a whole, a man is a whole, an animal is a whole, even an insect is a whole. The solar system is a whole. Anything you can think of has a wholeness characterising its existence. Even what you call an isolated thing is a wholeness by itself. You are an individual seated here as one among the many, yet you are a wholeness in your own capacity. You are an indivisible individuality. Though you are one among the many persons seated here, in your own status you attain to an indivisibility which is your personality, the so-called 'I am' you are affirming every moment of time.

In a sense, we may say the whole world is filled with this Self because everyone asserts 'I am'. Even an insect, even a crawling earthworm asserts its independence and wishes to exist in that particular form. The love of life, the struggle for existence, the affirmation of the will to live is present in even the least of things. This affirmation can be explained only by the presence of that supreme affirmation of the mystery which unites the particulars of all phenomena and cries in a loud tone: “I am!” This universal 'I' reflects itself, descends further down into the relative particularities of what we ourselves appear to be, as anything can appear in its own form. Therefore, the world is a world of Selfhood. The pursuit of this indivisibility in any of its manifestations is the pursuit of religion, spirituality, mysticism, yoga.

Hence, a religious aspiration, a love for yoga, is a journey that we are undertaking towards a wholeness which is a little above the wholeness of our own personalities. We are also a whole in our own selves, but we are not satisfied with that wholeness because there are other wholes which contend with our own individual wholeness. The presence of another thing is a limitation of our being, and as we are inwardly a limitless presence of this all-comprehensive mystery, we are not satisfied with our own selves. Nothing anywhere can satisfy us because we are seeking this wholeness which is to explain and to rectify the limitations of our little wholeness in which we are embedded at present.

We are struggling to overcome the limitations caused by the presence of other persons and things by attempting to abolish other things by any means available. This is the reason why we love things and hate things. All our loves and hatreds can be explained, and have to be explained, only because of our supreme love for the overcoming of our limitations by transcending them by the attainment of a higher wholeness wherein we have the vision of a larger dimension of this indivisibility. Even our little family quarrels can be explained only by our love for the urge of the self for a larger selfhood. Even our small skirmishes, battles and wars are ultimately spiritual. Even the worst of things has a spiritual element behind it, and nothing else can be anywhere, even in the lowest of hells. Even in the worst of infernos an explanation of spirituality is there, and the spirit performs this drama of the ups and downs of life, crowning a person king today and hurling the very same person down to the worst possible experience tomorrow. This is the work of this mystery—to enthrone us in a kingdom today and then cast us down into the dust tomorrow. This is what God is doing, this is what the Self is doing, and this is the explanation of the history of man, which moves as a powerful river to its destination of an oceanic expanse. Thus, we are pulled, whether we consciously will it or not, in the direction of religious pursuits for the practice of spirituality.

There is a large significance behind the talks that we have in the field of religion as a Sadhana Week, as a study, as a svadhyaya, as a church-going or a temple worship, etc. There are more things in heaven and on Earth than we can imagine in our minds. Our own little longings are more than what they appear outwardly. They enshrine within their little vehicle a mystery and a treasure which is far superior to the shape of the vehicle in which they are enshrined. Hence, even the first step in religion and spirituality is a step towards the wholeness of experience. This is why it is often said that particularised loves and hatreds are contrary to the requirements of religious endeavour.

I mentioned just now that our loves and hatreds are explained only by the spiritual urge within us. But we are unable to interpret the experiences of life in terms of the meaning that is hidden behind them as a spiritual motive. We are carried away by the upsurge of the outward waves of experience, but we are unable to discover the inward movement of the ocean that is behind this tumultuous activity of the waves. Our eyes tempt us and deceive us. Our understanding also goes together with the activities of the senses. Therefore, we do not know what we ourselves are aiming at and what we are doing in our daily lives.

The religion of yoga, or the practice of spirituality, is a movement of the finite in the direction of a larger finitude, though that itself may be a finite in the light of a higher experience. Spirituality is an evolutionary process, as anything else can be. The scientific evolution which biologists speak of is also a spiritual evolution. All evolution is spiritual, and the work of the various phenomena in the astral world, in the astronomical universe, in this physical realm, all outwardly appearing to be material in their nature, are also spiritually motivated. Matter does not exist, finally; therefore, in a way we may say that the world also does not exist.

But the so-called world before us, the matter which contends with the spirit, is a false isolation of a part of the spirit itself as an object which it beholds like a counterpart of its own self, a segmentation of the spirit. Just as we can behold ourselves in a mirror, the spirit beholds itself, as it were, in the world, in the universe, in phenomena, in the form of matter. When we behold ourselves, see ourselves or look at ourselves in a mirror, we have not become another. We see ourselves in a mirror, no doubt, but we have not become that thing which is seen in the mirror. We are still the very same thing that we were before we looked at ourselves in the mirror. Spirit remains spirit, even in matter. Even when spirit appears as matter or the world appears as only matter, and nothing else but matter, spirit remains as spirit. It cannot become anything else.

The so-called material phenomenon, the world of perception, the universe of experience, is an interpretation of the universal spirit through the space-time causal relationship. Therefore, the world is a kind of interpretation rather than an existence. It is a reading of meaning rather than a presence by itself. It does not exist, but it appears to be there as an inexplicable x in an algebraic explanation or equation. The x in algebra is a non-entity in itself, but this non-entity is an explanation of everything that is implied in this equation. So is this world. It is a tentative tool for the explanation of that which beyond itself reigns supreme, while it itself does not exist. A non-existent something leads us to something which is really existent. As they say by an analogy, the roar of a non-existent tiger in dream can awaken the individual into a real experience. The dream tiger does not exist, and its roar is also not there, but it can terrify the dreamer to such an extent that we will be woken up into a real world of perception. It is difficult to believe how a thing that is not there can produce an experience which is there. Similarly, the Guru, the idea of God that we have in our minds, and the worships that we offer in the form of religion and spirituality are also the roars of tigers which are not really there, but they can wake us up into a real experience, which is what Is.

Therefore, the practice of yoga, the pursuit of religion, the living of spirituality is the pursuit of a hidden mystery. Religion is a mystery. It is not a social work or a service that we render to our nation or to people outside as a kind of redemptive effort on a purely empirical level. Service becomes spiritual, karma becomes karma yoga when we can see a meaning that is hidden in and through the outward performances of the activity and the intention, which is other than the activity itself. The intention is what counts, not the form of the activity. Hence, karma yoga is not a work that we do but a meaning that is behind the work that we do. If the meaning is absent, the work becomes a skeleton, a corpse which is carried on a stretcher but has no life in it. Action can become a mere corpse when it is divested of the spiritual intention behind it; therefore, our efforts in life may not always succeed. People often complain they have done so much but nothing comes out if it. It is because they have done nothing, really. They have only been moving like a corpse, and the movement of a corpse cannot be regarded as any worthwhile activity because there is no life in it. All the works that we do in life are usually the work of a corpse. There appears to be a movement, but it is like the movement of a car without a driver and so it is a chaotic activity, a lifeless movement in any direction whatsoever, without a purpose.

Karma yoga is a spiritualised activity, no doubt, but we must know what it actually means. It is the discovery of that outlook which is compatible with the presence of this universal Self in the activities of our daily life. It is a difficult thing to understand, and even more difficult to practise. We wool-gather, we sleep, we slip off track, and we are once again the old people that we were in spite of our effort because, as I told you, the spirit always eludes the grasp of empirical understanding and, much worse, the perceptions of the senses. Kṣurasya dhārā niśitā duratyayā (Katha 1.3.14); apramattas tadā bhavati (Katha 2.3.11) are the cautious maxims we have in the scriptures. Subtle, invisible is this path of the spirit. Strait is the gate, narrow is the way, so narrow that it looks like the dimension of a hair's breath. It is subtle like the sharp edge of a razor or a sword, invisible to the eyes. We cannot see the spiritual path. We cannot even know it with our mind wedded to space and time. The understanding is incapable of knowing what it is. Hence, one cannot know what the religious significance of life is by analysing it only through a vivisection by way of scientific analysis, etc.

One has to be very cautious. That is apramattas tadā bhavati. Heedlessness is death. We are mostly heedless because we are carried away by a complacency that we are already on the path, but no one can be so sure that they are really on the path. Even if we happen to be on the path, we can be sidetracked, taken in the wrong direction, and we will be made to believe that we are moving in the right direction. Here is the difficulty. But constant practise will save us. Light will shine on the path as a consequence of the good deeds that we performed in our previous lives, the samskaras or punya dharmas of earlier existences, as also the power that is produced by our own efforts in this life, the blessings of the Guru from whom we have received initiation into yoga and, finally, the grace of God will
help us.

Every day one has to wake up in the morning with vigilance in the mind, as if we are walking on a razor's edge or on a very narrow rope bridge, and non-vigilance may mean falling into the abyss. For this purpose we have to create a daily routine and a program for ourselves. We should never be under the impression that we are wholly religious or spiritual. Not even a great saint can be said to be wholly religious all of the time. That is not possible under the circumstances of life here. A daily routine is to be chalked out, and all the necessary things of life have to be taken into consideration. Our family circumstances, our office routines, our physical health, our financial condition—every blessed thing has to be considered when we prepare a program. Every item that is indispensable in life and cannot be avoided under the circumstances has to be put down in our diary. Oftentimes, the different items of our daily program cannot be exposed to the public. The daily program is not necessarily what people see outside, but rather what is in our minds. The various tensions and anxieties are not capable of being demonstrated outside. Everyone has a worry in their minds, but we cannot tell anyone because to tell it is itself another worry, so we somehow keep it inside us.

But we have to get over this. We have to see that every tension is removed from our minds before we step wholly onto the spiritual path, because a morbid mind is unfit for this purpose. We have to be healthy individuals first. We are rarely wholly healthy. Our minds are distracted by compulsive movements of the social structure in which we are placed. Because we are made in that way, at present we are unable to live a life which is not social. It does not mean that we should always be social individuals from birth to death, but at present, at least, it does not appear that we can live an unsocial existence because we have needs which are connected with social solidarity, social relationship and social cooperation. Apart from that, we have to breathe air, drink water, and bask in sunlight, which is a natural dependence on the physical world of nature. We have social dependences of other types. We require a doctor when we are sick, and medicine which we cannot manufacture ourselves. We require vegetables which are not grown in our own garden, as well as pulses, rice and wheat. We require every blessed thing. This is a kind of dependence. A day will come, God willing, when we are not dependent like this. A day like that has to come; we cannot go on cringing before others until we die—although, at present, being independent does not appear to be practicable.

Therefore, the difficulties of this type, which we might regard as necessary evils, though they are evils themselves, have to be paid their due. The worst of things has to be taken into consideration even if it may appear as totally unreligious and wholly unspiritual. Anything which we cannot avoid should be regarded as religious and spiritual. We should not say it is unspiritual. A thing that we can wholly avoid may be avoided, but when we have concluded that it cannot be avoided, why do we complain that it is unreligious and unspiritual? It has some connection with our religious or spiritual practices, and with our existence itself. Anything that is contributory to the values which are religious and spiritual even in the remotest sense are also religious and spiritual.

Here, one has to be very charitable, and not dogmatic and fanatic. We have one difficulty in life, and that is social dogma and religious fanaticism, often into which we are born. We cannot forget that we are Hindus, Christians, Muslims, etc. Though this feeling is not necessary and perhaps, I may say, it is wholly undesirable, we are born into this. We think as Hindus, as Christians, as Muslims, and we also think as men and women, etc. We cannot avoid these ideas. These are great problems. These are the diseases of the psyche, and when they are there, we have to accept that they are there. It is not true that we are Hindus or Christians, it is not true that we belong to a particular nation, and it is not true that we are men or women. But we have been forced into the belief that we are these and, consequently, we are forced to behave as if we are these. This is a malady of human society. But there is no use merely saying it is a malady; it has to be taken into consideration as necessary in our existence. We have to gradually rip ourselves open and shed these limitations by passing through them, and not by imagining that they are not there. We cannot close our eyes to the existence of a problem, though it may appear that it is a fallacy of thinking and a misconception. Even a total misconception in the minds of people can be a necessary part of our religious activity if we cannot get out of the clutches of this misconception.

Hence, when we chalk out a daily routine we have to be a highly impersonal psychoanalyst, a medical doctor or a judge in a court within ourselves, though we may not express it outwardly. Our religion cannot be shown to others. It is impossible to demonstrate to people what kind of religion we are practising, and the religion that is seen outside is not our real religion. We live one kind of religion inside, and show another kind of religion outside because we have to live a social religion acceptable to people; otherwise, they will hang us or burn us at the stake for our religion, as we know very well, and we do not wish this fate. So we have a double religion—a religion inside which is known to us alone in our private lives, which nobody outside knows, and another religion which makes us bow down before a holy image and speak about religion in conformity with the accepted social norms. Therefore, we have two spiritualties, two religions, two Gods, two aims, two personalities, two of everything. But these two should become one in the days to come.

This is a tension which has crept into us from being forced to live a double life; therefore, we are always sick. We cannot wholly live socially what we are inside us. This is very unfortunate. We do not know whom to blame for this. We are always one thing inside, and another thing in society, because it is not possible for society to accept what we think, and it is also not possible for us to accept what society takes as its norm. Hence, we have to be sick always. We do not know who made us these people that we are, and how society grew into this pattern. Anyhow, it is there, and it has to be explained in the way in which it is there. We have to overcome this difficulty by passing through the difficulty, and not by imagining that it is not there. Therefore, religion is a difficult thing. It is a medical treatment, yes. It has been that, and it can be nothing else.

So I request you all, as members of a fraternity of true religion and spirituality and God-love, to have your own inward program which you need not tell anybody else, except perhaps your own master, teacher, guide, superior, Guru, to whom you can expose yourself wholly. If not, keep it to your own self, and pray to God. He will be your Guru and guide you, and throw light into your hearts. See that every day is a day when one aspect of the tension is shed.

Many of the things which are the causes of our inward difficulties are the desires which we cannot fulfil, and which we cannot help fulfilling at the same time. This is a psychic problem into which people sink and become neurotics. Many religious people are neurotics. They are not wholly healthy minds. That is why they suddenly flare into anger, shout at the top of their voices, and show their irreconcilability with other people at the least word that is uttered. They have some great tension inside, but they cannot tell outside what it is. So they divert it by a displacement into the personality of other people and pounce upon others like tigers, wolves, making it appear that they are in the right and others are in the wrong. This is a psychoanalytic problem. There are various defence mechanisms which the mind adopts to save its skin and put the entire blame on others, proclaiming in a loud tone that one is wholly unscathed and not at all in the wrong. This situation also has to become an analysis of our own selves, and here we require a good psychoanalyst—not a clinical psychoanalyst, but a spiritual man who has passed through these stages and who knows what people are, and also what religions' requirements are.

Today's analysis has been more psychological, and I hope to lead you further to a field of inward investigation and practice which will be more integrating.