The One Appearing as Many
(Spoken on June 22, 1997)
Visitor: Swamiji, last time
you told us about Lord Siva showing the Vishwarupa wherein a number of Krishnas
were coming out of him, and in the same Mahabharata Krishna showed the
Vishwarupa with a number of Rudras coming out of him.
Swamiji: It is only one being
appearing as two things. There is no Siva and there is no Krishna; there is
only one being appearing as this and that. He can put on any dress and manifest
himself. There are no two Gods. There is only one, and you can call Him by any
name. It is the Supreme Being. On this side it is Siva, on that side it is
Krishna, and on another side it is also Devi. In the Devi Mahatmya, Brahma,
Vishnu, Siva, Indra, everybody started coming out from her body, so He can
manifest from anything.
Visitor: But there have been
times when these gods have been confronting each other.
Swamiji: They do not confront
each other. You do not understand them properly.
So much heat the sun is
creating, and so many floods he will create afterwards. Now, why is he doing
two contradictory things? There is such a burning heat, and then there is such
a flood that everything is destroyed. They are not conflicting; they are two
interconnected things.
The whole complex of space,
time and causation as God has created is operating systematically, like an
organism of the body. So where is the vainglorious importance of a human
individual? The universe is operating, not me, not anybody else. If this
consciousness can be maintained by us, the world shall be our friend. If the
body is not a friend of the finger, it will not lift. I do not say my body is
lifting the finger but “ I am lifting the finger”.
This cooperation between the
physical organism and its parts is to be seen everywhere in the universe. The
world operation is a mystery and the basic controller of even our breath. Can
anybody answer the question of why the heart is not sleeping when we are
sleeping? There is a cosmic force which keeps the individual intact for a
purpose which is beyond the understanding of human nature.
This is high psychology,
cosmology, and creational philosophy, which is simply stunning if you think
over it. You will hold your breath in admiration. You are an official in the
government of the universe which orders the local governments to operate in a
particular way. All operations in the world are internally connected.
These little things that I am
saying are like a healing balm to the troubled mind of a person. It will calm
your heart, and make your mind peaceful. You will be confident that after all,
things are not so bad as they appear. There is some benefactory influence
operating in the universe. There are friends in the universe. It is not true
that all are enemies only. The sun and the moon and the stars and the breath
and the Ganga and the Himalayas, they are our friends.
There were great saints who
could speak to the trees and to the leaves. There was a saint in Italy, called
Saint Francis of Assisi. Birds, wolves and jackals would gather at his feet
when he gave a sermon. He was speaking to Jesus Christ, he was speaking to God,
but all these came from the forest.
Sri Krishna blew the flute.
That flute drew all the cattle and all the people. Men, women, children ran,
because it was the flute of the cosmos – God calling. When God calls, everybody
runs like rivers running to the ocean.
Visitor: We do not find in our
actual life all these gods, flute, and…
Swamiji: How will you see it
when you are not opening your eyes?
Visitor: My eyes are wide
open.
Swamiji: You are opening the
physical eyes, but the inner eye is not opening. Your intellectual eye,
emotional eye, spiritual eye should open. You are not seeing yourself with your
eyes.
Visitor: I may not be of that
level, but…
Swamiji: Now that you are able
to understand what I am saying, it shows that you are also in that level. You
are intelligent enough to understand what it means. The only thing is, you are
unable to coordinate your daily life with the universal life. You are creating
segments, a separation between the secular and the spiritual. There is no such
thing. There is no secular, and there is no spiritual. They are one organic
whole. Life is one. You cannot separate them. It requires a little bit of
meditation, deep thinking.
There is a need for every
person to be alone to oneself for a few minutes every day. You cannot be so
busy that you forget your own self. When you get up in the morning, you should
think, “Who am I? From where I have come? What kind of person am I? Before I
became a very important official, what was I? When I retire, what am I going to
be? Who took care of me when I was a little child in the cradle? Now who is
going to take care of me when I am old and unable to walk? How in the middle I
have become very important?”
These forces which are playing
a great drama of this creation are utilising us for their purposes. We are the
ambassadors of God. We have been sent here for a purpose. The purpose is not to
violate the law of the universe and assert an independence on our own. The ambassador
is beholden to the government which sends him, and if the government calls him,
he has to go back. Though he is stationed in one country, he belongs to another
country altogether.
So we are on the Earth, but we
belong to high heaven, which is another realm from which we have come. There
are levels of existence: earthly, astral, celestial, cosmical, causal, the
Absolute. There are many levels of being, just as there are molecules, atoms,
electrons, magnetic forces, and then powers which are commensurate with all
things. If you go on diving deep into the material objects in the world, you
will find basically they are one. Though millions of bubbles may be there in
the ocean, at the root they are one ocean. So all these individualities of ours
– animate, inanimate, whatever – are like bubbles in the sea of cosmic
existence, which is ruled by a Supreme Intelligence.
You are intelligent, I am
intelligent; we have intelligence in us. This intelligence is a drop of cosmic
intelligence. Just as a drop of water is a part of the ocean, our intelligence,
our intellectuality, our rationality, whatever it is, is a drop in the sea of
the universal intelligence. We are called jivas,
individuals, because of the droplet of intelligence that we have got; and the
universal intelligence is God.
Without the organic
cooperative activity of the body, no limb can operate, and whatever we are
today is due to a blessing we have received due to the good karma that we did
in the past. If we are enjoying life today with status, with finance, with
power, with good health, and everything is okay, it is because we have done
some good deeds in the past. We cannot deserve comfort which we have not given
to other people. There is no such thing as free service. All of you are great
people today because you have done great deeds in the previous birth, though
you may not remember what deeds you have done. Now, if you want to become still
greater in the next birth, in this birth you must do good deeds because you are
exhausting all your virtuous deeds of the previous birth by enjoying them this
birth. What about the next birth? Whatever you have done now will come there.
So you should not imagine from your individual point of view that everything is
okay in one second.
The whole universe is the
kingdom of heaven, and we are living inside it. The joys of life, the happiness
we feel in our own heart is the pura punya phala,
the result of good actions that we have performed. We have done great
charities, great good deeds, and great services in the previous life.
Therefore, now we are like a king. And if we want to become a greater king in
our next birth, we must do some more work now in this birth.
What can be a greater service
than prayer to the Almighty God? Be grateful. We have to show our gratitude to
the Creator of the universe, and He will show us His willingness to serve us.
It is difficult to get a thing in the world; it takes time. But to contact God
it takes one second because eternity does not require time to come here. That
is the blessing.
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