(Apr 30,2014) Spiritual Message for the Day – Is God a person or a personality? by Sri Swami Krishnananda

 Is God a person or a personality?

Divine Life Society Publication: Chapter 20 Concepts of God-Your Questions Answered by Sri Swami Krishnananda

Swedish Visitor A: Are not intelligence and goodness narrow human concepts? How do we know that God is a person or a personality – that He has personal qualities?

SWAMIJI: Whether God is a person or not – this is your question? You see, this is a fairly important question in the study of theologies everywhere, in all religions. All the Semitic religions (Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam) consider God as a Supreme Person, almost identifying Him with the concept of a Supreme Father. "Father in heaven, hallowed be Thy name," – that is how the prayer goes. All these descriptions of God imply that He is a large inclusive universal personality. You are asking me whether He is really a personality.

Personality is a human concept. When we talk of personality, we always think of the pattern of human personality. We don't think of the personality of a lion, or an elephant, and all that. Our thoughts are conditioned by the human way of thinking. Now, is it true that the human way of thinking is the only way of thinking, and there is no other way? A frog also thinks, a reptile thinks, a cow thinks, an elephant thinks. Do you think that their thinking is wrong?

Visitor A: No, I think they are personalities, too.

SWAMIJI: They are personalities, but we don't think that God is a huge lion. We generally think that God is a huge human form, as big as this universe. The first point about this is that we are thinking like human beings, and it is not necessary that this is the only way of thinking. It may be subject to modification when we evolve further in the process of evolution. Man thinks in one way, a super-man thinks in another way, and it is believed that man has to become a super-man, until he becomes a God-man.

The other point is: what is personality, be it human or otherwise? A person exists in space and time. If space and time are not there, there cannot be personality. A person exists in space; there is space around him, and time also is there. Now, we believe that space and time were created by God, and they were not there prior to God's existence. We always say that God is first, not that space and time are first. "God created the heaven and the earth," says the scripture, which means to say He created space and time. If that is the case, God cannot be said to be conditioned by space and time. In other words, He is not in space and time. If He is not in space and time, how will you see Him as a person?

God, thus, is not really a person. He is not in heaven only. We say God is in heaven, but God created the heaven; so, before He created the heaven, where was He? Neither can we say that He is a person, nor can we say that He is in heaven. God is universal, all-comprehensive, infinite Existence. That seems to be the only conclusion we can draw by going deep into the question of the nature of God.

But, for the purpose of devotion, you see otherwise. Man cannot think of infinitude always. The mind is not made up of such potential. We want affection, love, and also response to our affection. An infinite all-pervading, non-spatial, non-temporal Existence cannot evoke our affection so much, just as logic and mathematics cannot evoke our affection. Logic and mathematics are perfect sciences; we accept that, but we cannot love them. Our heart does not go for them, our heart goes to a painting, music, architecture, sculpture, literature, etc. Where our heart is, there our love and our happiness also is. To manifest our love, we require an object. We cannot love the Infinite for obvious reasons. So, we have to consider God as a Supreme Father. Sometimes, in India, people consider Him also as a Supreme Mother.

From our point of view, from the requirement of human nature, there is nothing wrong in thinking that God is a Person, because the Infinite can also appear as a Person, in the same way as a block of stone can appear as a statue by carving. The block of stone does not contain the statue, but it contains a statue potentially. God can be a Person, and yet we need not limit Him to personality. He is rather a Super-Person. This is what I think God must be. 

Excerpts from:

Concepts of God - Chapter 20-Your Questions Answered by Sri Swami Krishnananda

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(Mar 27,2014) Spiritual Message for the Day – Total Thought and Meditation by Swami Krishnananda

Total Thought and Meditation

Divine Life Society Publication: Chapter4: Your Questions Answered by Swami Krishnananda

What is meditation?

Meditation is an integration of consciousness. It is not a routine or a ritual and has no connection with any scripture. It is not a religious exercise belonging to some religion. It is an opening of yourself to the final realities of life. It is an impersonal act on the part of yourself, wherein you lift up your consciousness to recognition of the fact that you are a temporary sojourning entity into eternity.

You have come from a larger realm, and will enter into the same realm after some time, which will indicate gradually that your existence has a kind of cosmic sweep. From plane to plane you have journeyed in your millions of incarnations. This is only a temporary form that the cosmic form has taken due to some karma, some pressure of circumstance. We are ultimately, in what we call a spiritual sense, only forces of Nature which have concentrated themselves in certain space-time points, looking like individuals. This is how self-analysis has to be carried on. When you think along these lines, you will find that your mind becomes "total" instead of fragmentary.

You always think of something other than yourself. It is taken for granted by the mind that what you are thinking is something different from yourself. So, every thought of every person is directed towards something which is assumed to be totally different from the process of thinking. This is a mistake.

You cannot even think unless all the atmospheric conditions of the cosmic condition are involved in the very process of thinking. When you think, it looks as if you are thinking like a cosmic being, because your mind is connected to all the circumstances through which you have passed in all your various incarnations.

Everyone is related to you in some way or other through the circumstance of some incarnation, some birth or other. This is why they say that the world is a single family. Like the various branches of a tree coming forth from the root, all these manifestations and forms of existence have come out from One Root.

We don't do meditation merely for doing it. There can be benefit only if your thoughts are harmonious with reality. If you dichotomise your thought from the reality of the world and consider it as an external object, then it will be finite thinking, and finite thinking will produce only finite results. So, total thinking, is called meditation. All the thoughts of everyone and of everything will be comprehended within the total grasp of your mind in this act.

How to Meditate

Your mind has to consciously, vitally, involve in itself the object which it is thinking; otherwise, you cannot even be conscious of the object. The very fact that you are conscious of some object outside you implies that it has already entered the mind. It has become part and parcel of your consciousness. Now, here is the technique of total thinking. You cannot think the object unless you accept that it is a part of your thought itself. Thus, the thinker is not an individual. It is something in between the object and the so-called subject. It is a connecting link, transcendent.

Adhyatma, Adhibhuta, Adhidaiva

In our ancient scriptures we use words like adhyatma, adhibhuta, adhidaiva, etc. Adhyatma is the thinking subject; adhibhuta is the object, but we don't know anything else. We think only two things. I am here and I am seeing and thinking something else. But you cannot think something else unless there is a connecting link of consciousness between you and the other object. The thinker is actually that connecting link. That is called adhidaiva, the superintending divinity. So, who is the meditator?

You are not meditating, because if you consider yourself as the meditator, you cut yourself off from the object. But I mentioned to you that you cannot cut off your consciousness from any object, inasmuch as, unless it is involved in that object, thinking is not possible. So this involvement-consciousness is a transcendent consciousness which is above both you and the object. It is a very subtle thing, and very difficult to catch that little crux of the matter.

You transfer your consciousness, as it were, to the middle connection, transfer your consciousness to the center where you contemplate both sides, as if the body is thinking of two hands. This is the subject and this is the object, but the thinker of both is the body; so you are not one person thinking of another thing. Meditation does not mean thinking of an object; it is transference of consciousness from the subjectivity of yours and from the objectivity of the object to a central point which is transcendent to both. That is the divinity which is called Ishtadevata. You contemplate like this. This is what they call total thinking, and this is the essence of meditation.

Difference between total thought and meditation

They are the same thing. Total thought means a perfect form of thought, and meditation means the same thing. It is a total thought, not little bits of thinking, one thing at a time. Generally, we think little things, but that is not correct thinking because when you think something, you exclude something else. You should exclude nothing and include all things in your thought; then it becomes a total thought. It is something like God-thought. That is the perfect form of thinking. Then you will have no troubles from the mind afterwards. There will be cooperative forces working together. If you exclude something, that something which you exclude will not cooperate with you. That is why troubles arise.

Excerpts from:

Total Thought and Meditation - Your Questions Answered by Swami Krishnananda

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(Feb 25,2014) Spiritual Message for the Day – Beautiful Thought by Swami Krishnananda

Beautiful Thought

Divine Life Society Publication: Chapter 29 Your Questions Answered by Swami Krishnananda

Visitor: You said in your Chhandogya Upanishad that the pattern of our thought must be beautiful. This means that our spontaneous thoughts are not beautiful, but they should be. Is this the true meaning?

SWAMIJI: What is spontaneous thought?

Visitor: That which comes without our instruction.

SWAMIJI: Generally, spontaneous thought is not beautiful because it is an emotional thought, or a distracted thought, or a thought born of anxiety. That is the usual thought that people have, so how can it be beautiful?

Visitor: How can we make it beautiful?

SWAMIJI: You must think that which is beautiful. Then, your thought also becomes beautiful. You think that which is most beautiful, and your thought immediately becomes beautiful by the impact of the form of that which is considered beautiful. Which is that which is beautiful? Tell me. What is beautiful?

Visitor: The unity.

SWAMIJI: Unity of what?

Visitor: To see God in all persons and in everything.

SWAMIJI: If you can plant God in everything, you will see only God. You will see nothing else. If you see only God, and nothing else anywhere, that is a beautiful thought. But no other thought can be really beautiful.

Visitor: But why does the spontaneous thought become beautiful?

SWAMIJI: In a very advanced stage of meditation, your spontaneous thought also will be God-thought, but normally, a human being cannot think God always. So, effort is necessary. Meditation requires some effort in the beginning. Otherwise, normally, people are not thinking of God in their minds. They are thinking of their own problems, and business, and all that, so that such thought cannot be called beautiful. But, if you are able to spontaneously manifest God-thought only, and no other thought, then you can say that spontaneous thought also is beautiful. Is it possible to think only God, and no other thought will come?

Visitor: No.

SWAMIJI: So, the other thought, which is spontaneous, naturally will not be beautiful. It will be a fragmentary and broken thought. Only God-thought is beautiful; no other thought can be called finally beautiful.

A complete structure is necessary for anything to be beautiful. Nothing that is not complete can be beautiful. So, who is complete in this world? Tell me. Nobody. And, therefore, nobody is beautiful. Sometimes the most beautiful thing, which is God, gets reflected in something; then, that also looks beautiful. Do you understand? Though God alone is ultimately beautiful, that in which God is reflected also looks beautiful. A child is beautiful, and a saint is beautiful, because both child and saint have no ego. Wherever there is no ego, that state looks beautiful. Wherever there is ego, it looks ugly. Egolessness is the nature of God; and God gets reflected in a child, and also in a saint. So, both look beautiful; but the middle people are not beautiful, because they are neither saints nor children.

If you are a child, then you are beautiful, because in a child there is innocence, absence of egoism, and self-affirmation, so God reflects Himself in that condition. God can be reflected in the things of the world also, provided these things are "minus ego," and are innocent. Then, God will be reflected there.

A saint also has no ego. He is like a child, so he also is radiant. Finally, it means that God is beautiful. The essence of it is that and anything that reflects God also is beautiful. So, if your thought is spontaneous, and spontaneously you are thinking this kind of thing, then your thought is beautiful.

Visitor:  We can achieve it only by practising more and more?

SWAMIJI: Yes, by practising total thinking.

Visitor:  It is the only way to have those spontaneous thoughts?

SWAMIJI: Yes – by practising. It requires great effort on your part in the beginning to entertain a "complete thought." Only a complete thought can be a beautiful thought.

Visitor: What is a complete thought?

SWAMIJI: A complete thought has nothing outside it. It is holistic. And, only God can be so complete. That is Beauty.

Excerpts from:

Beautiful Thought - Chapter 29 Your Questions Answered by Swami Krishnananda

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(Feb 3,2014) Spiritual Message for the Day – Looking for Happiness by Swami Krishnananda

Looking for Happiness

Divine Life Society Publication: Chapter 18 Your Questions Answered by Swami Krishnananda

SWAMIJI: What is your final aim?

Visitor: I think, speaking philosophically, joy or peace is what we all want, whether we seek it in business, or love, or religion.

SWAMIJI: In a life which is characterized by momentariness and fluxation, with temporality reigning supreme everywhere, and nothing permanent worth the while, with no control finally over anything, what kind of happiness are you expecting in this world? Perhaps happiness that is going to be enduring and not merely fleeting cannot be had in a world which is fleeting by its nature.

Nobody can be happy in this world, yet it is happiness that we seek. It looks like a contradiction in our approach. Being involved in a world of fluxation and temporality, how do you expect permanent happiness? Yet our heart seems to be yearning for permanent happiness. It doesn't want a joy for one moment, and destruction the next moment.

Actually, the joy that we seek is super-physical, super-terrestrial; it is transcendent. All that we empirically experience, sensorially perceive or contact, what we feel psychologically in terms of sense perception is not the joy that we seek, finally. There is a transcendent super-physical element operating in us, and if you can contact that transcendent element in your own self or in the world, you may be contacting the source of your joy. This is the work of religion.

Religion is nothing but the art of contacting the source of real happiness which, as we have in this little analysis found, is not to be had in this world. When I say "in this world," I mean anything that is sensorially perceptible. Even this body is not a reliable source of happiness, because it comes and goes.

This body was given birth to, and it also will pass away some day. Would you like to connect your happiness to a bodily existence which comes and goes? Would you like to have a joy which comes and goes? You have already decided that you don't want such a kind of joy. We want a joy which is always there and shall not leave us, but the body has come, and it shall leave us. Our relations, property, the world, this body, will all leave us. Where are we going to be finally? That you have to contact, by an inner vision and an in-depth analysis of one's own self, and a meditation which is called yoga, religion, metaphysics.

Direct action is necessary in this connection; something has to be done about it. Meditation is a practice of concentrating the consciousness on some thing, but what is that something? In kriya yoga there is a breathing process prescribed on which you concentrate; that is one method. Meditation is the art of contacting reality, and for that you have to first be sure what reality is. You cannot concentrate on something which is not clear to the mind.

What are you wanting, finally? On that you have to fix your attention. Whether you call it hatha yoga or kriya yoga or anything else is not important. Fix your consciousness on your concept of final reality, and it shall bless you. You have to decide yourself what is ultimately real, in yourself or in the world; then fix your attention and attune your consciousness with it. This is meditation. It has no particular name.

When you adopt certain preparatory techniques which vary according to different schools, you call them karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja yoga, kriya yoga, kundalini yoga, etc. These names are given only to the preparatory stages, but the final end is the same in all cases. It is a plunge into reality. What is reality? This requires a knowledge which is obtained from the teacher. Everyone has to approach a teacher for this purpose. A Guru is necessary.

Each one has a concept of the Ultimate Being; on that you concentrate. The word "ultimate" implies the finality of it, and there is nothing above it. When you ask for it, you need not ask for anything else. On that you fix your mind. This is the whole of religion, philosophy, and yoga.

Excerpts from:

Looking for Happiness - Chapter 18 Your Questions Answered by Swami Krishnananda

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(Jan 21,2014) Spiritual Message for the Day – How Does Transformation Of The Personality Take Place by Swami Krishnananda

How Does Transformation of The Personality Take Place?

Divine Life Society Publication: Chapter 68-Fear of Losing The World – Your Questions Answered by Swami Krishnananda

Visitor: I have a question, Swamiji, about transformation – how does transformation take place in time?

SWAMIJI: What kind of transformation?

Visitor: Of the personality, of the old way of being, the old way of seeing things, and understanding things to the new way of being more interested in the Self.

SWAMIJI: Transformation is actually a state of consciousness. When you are aware of something, consciousness envelops that thing, and it takes the shape of that particular thing, whether it is a human being, or any particular object of the world. And, you are transformed at that time into the form of the object which you are thinking in your mind. But, if the object does not exist for you – they are not matters of concern for you – you have nothing to do with anything in the world, and then the consciousness transforms itself into its own true nature.

Now, we are empirically conscious, sensorially aware, and filled with object consciousness. We are seeing this world; we are looking at the buildings, we are seeing the wall, and so many people around us. There, in that condition of perception of things, a psychological transformation takes place. The mind assumes the shape of that which it cognizes; then, you are able to see that such a thing exists. As molten lead cast into a crucible takes the shape of that crucible, the mind takes the shape of any object which it cognizes, or perceives through the sense organs.

This is called bondage to the objects. If you are not concerned with anything – you are seeing so many people here, but your mind is not transformed into the shape of these people, because the mind has no concern with them – it is a blank looking and seeing, without any emotional connection. If that emotional connection with things is withdrawn, and your concern is centralized in the Pure Self, you undergo a metaphysical transformation, as they call it – a transcendental transformation – transformation into a form of God Himself, I should say. Instead of your consciousness taking the shape of a thing that it cognizes outside, in the form of objects, etc., the centralized consciousness, with no concern external in space and time, gets modified into the form of the Transcendent Being, which is God-consciousness. That is the transformation that you are expecting, which will take place automatically, if you are freed from object-consciousness, or any kind of desire-consciousness. That is what you are expecting in your spiritual transforming process.

The Self almost loses contact with itself, and moves outside in the form of objects of sense, when it desires anything. That is an unnatural condition of the mind. The senses have to be withdrawn from such perceptional activity, and consciousness has to rest in itself. The resting of the consciousness in its own self, which is Universality of Being, is the highest Yoga or meditation. There is nothing more to be done afterwards. That is the final goal.

Excerpts from:

How Does Transformation Of The Personality Take Place? – Chapter 68-Fear of Losing The World – Your Questions Answered by Swami Krishnananda

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(Nov 24,2013 ) Spiritual Message for the Day –The Balance of Nature

The Balance of Nature

Divine Life Society Publication: Chapter 63 Your Questions Answered by Swami Krishnananda

 

 

Spanish Visitor: There is so much suffering, and struggle; a war is going on right now because of egoism, power, pride...

SWAMIJI: You see, sometimes you sneeze, sometimes you have pain in the stomach, sometimes you have fever; are these good things or bad things? These things are not called good things, but why do they happen, if they are not good? Why do these things happen?

The reason why these things happen is also the reason why the other things happen, to which you made reference. It is a cosmic dislocation making internal adjustments. These things, sneezing, stomachache, fever, etc., are internal adjustments of the body to maintain its balance. It passes through certain peculiar painful adjustments for the purpose of maintaining a balance of health. Otherwise, unnecessarily, why should you vomit and all that? No purpose is served. Nature maintains a kind of balance where certain extremes take place, which maintain the balance.

When you eat too much, you will have indigestion. Now, it is not a bad thing that is happening, though it is certainly not a happy thing. It is necessary for the maintenance of the health of the body. You have done some extreme thing by overeating. You have walked in the rain, which is an extreme thing that you have done, so you got sneezing and fever. You have not slept properly, because you travelled too much.

Mild dislocations are set right by mild adjustments. Serious dislocations may lead to surgical operations. Then, destruction, flood, earthquake, war, and wholesale wiping out of humanity in certain parts also can take place, as when some extreme illness has crept into the system, some limb of the body may have to be severed by amputation. It is not a bad thing, because it is necessary for maintaining the balance of your system. It is a painful thing, but it is a necessary thing, also.

You have to see as Nature sees, not as one person sees. A limb that is severed by amputation may not like to be amputated, but you must not see it from the point of view of the limb only. You must see from the point of view of the whole organism; then, you will see the necessity for it, though it is a very unpleasant thing. So, unpleasant things are not always unnecessary things.

We cannot have a cosmic eye, and we cannot think as Nature thinks. The total eye of Nature alone can see the total need within its constitution, which includes people like us. We are also a part of Nature only. So, when it does something for maintaining its own internal constitutional balance, and it does it for its own purpose, which is the well-being of the whole, we, as isolated individuals, who cannot think as Nature as a total thinks, find that some odd thing is taking place; it looks like it is not very good.

Nature never does a bad thing. There is no such thing as a bad thing for Nature. It looks unpleasant, because we are outside Nature, psychologically. If we are one with Nature, we will see nothing improper taking place. We are looking at things by standing outside nature. That is why we cannot see things properly and impartially.

American Visitor: War and hunger and these things have been happening since the beginning of time, and you said something about Nature taking its course. Could you clarify that for me, on how Nature affects?

SWAMIJI: I have already told this, and again you are asking the same question. We are parts of Nature. Every one of us is a part of Nature. And every part is supposed to be in harmony with the whole. A part should not be in disharmony with the whole; otherwise, the whole will take action against the part, and set it right by doing something, which is what I mentioned in some detail, and that something is the thing that you see with your eyes.

We are in disharmony with Nature, disharmonious with God Himself. We are asserting our individuality too much, which Nature abhors. No limb of the body can assert independence totally out of harmony with the organism; then, pain will start, aches and all sorts of illness will arise. That illness is rectified by Nature's medical activity; the medical activity may be bitter medicine, or it may be a surgical action, which it does, as all these events that you see in the world taking place. It can be a thunder, it can be a flood, it can be anything; it can do whatever it likes for its purpose.

In the same way as you do not complain against anything that is happening within yourself, you will not complain against anything happening in the world, if you are one with the total whole. You do not go on complaining against yourself. You know the reason for it. You do not complain, you simply see that it is rectified. Similarly, you will not make complaints against anything if you are one with Nature, and if you can think through the mind of Nature and see it with the eye of Nature. Now, we are not able to do that; we are thinking individually, so we do not understand what is happening. The lower whole has to be sacrificed for the higher whole.

Excerpts from:

The Balance of Nature - Chapter 63 Your Questions Answered by Swami Krishnananda

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(Sep 5,2013) Spiritual Message for the Day – Creation of the World – Your Questions Answered

Creation of the World

Divine Life Society Publication: Chapter 40 Your Questions Answered by Swami Krishnananda

Visitor: Swamiji, sometimes I wonder how all this came into being –the whole human condition.
 

SWAMIJI: The human condition did not come. The world came.

Visitor: Yes. Sometimes I wonder how it all came into existence. And, it seems unanswerable.

SWAMIJI: Some say it came into existence by the thought of God. Some say it never came into existence. It is there, as it was, and nobody created it. It is there. Existence is not created by anybody. Who will create existence? To create existence, somebody else has to exist, prior to this existence, and existence is a general principle, so nobody can create existence. Existence is a word which does not require any further explanation. It has been there, and it is there. It is what it is. Nobody created it. That is one view of science or the modern scientists, to some extent.

But the religious view is that the Absolute Supreme Being, God, willed, "Let there be heaven and earth," and immediately, space manifested itself. Then, vibrations started moving inside space, and it became air. Friction started after that, which is heat, fire. Then, condensation took place, which is water. Then solidity appeared which is earth. Here is the beginning of creation, according to descriptions in religious scriptures.

And, inasmuch as God willed this creation, His consciousness is present in every little part of creation – this space, this air, this fire, this water, this earth – which are the five physical elements that you see before you. And, then, emerges a group of little individualities, which is the beginning of what you call the evolutionary process. There is, in the beginning, inanimate matter, which is described in the form of these five elements I mentioned just now. In the beginning there is only fungus-type plant kingdom, and all that. Even in the scriptures you will find that God created not man first; He created only this plantation – trees, etc., because trees are the first creation. Higher than plantation kingdom is the animal kingdom; higher than that is the human kingdom. So, we have come like that, by gradual evolutionary process, in the act of creation.

There are about eight million types of living species in this universe and the human species is one.  Among human beings also, all are not of a uniform type. Some of them are like animals, cannibals or intensely selfish.  Some others are very good in nature, doing only good. There are some others who are saints, geniuses or God-men.

Visitor: Thank you.

Visitor: What are the stages from a good man to a God-man?

SWAMIJI: A good man is one who considers other people as equally important as he considers himself. When I consider you as a person as important as my own self, I will treat you in the manner in which I treat myself. This is the characteristic of goodness. When you treat others as you treat yourself, it is considered as goodness. But a saint is a further step towards God-consciousness. It is something above goodness, because he is moving in the direction of God-consciousness. Thus, there is a gradual ascent from the lower to the higher; the higher includes the lower and transcends the lower.

Higher than all is the God-man. He lives like God Himself. Practically, there is no distinction between his consciousness and God-consciousness.

Excerpts from:

Creation of the World - Chapter 40 Your Questions Answered by Swami Krishnananda

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