Excerpts from Swamiji Krishnanandaji Maharaj's speech
(Our relationship with the Cosmos)
We have gathered here to exercise our minds in
the direction of our true blessedness.
These are days when people are intensely conscious of the environment of
the world. The vast atmosphere around us
is the environment. It not only
influences us minute by minute every day, but on careful analysis we will
realize that we are inseparable from this environment. The environment spoken of is a kind of society
external to us.
The world is our neighbor. The neighbor is a
friendly being, and also a fearsome something.
So is nature. Nothing can be more
friendly to us than the vast nature, because it is the mother out of which we
are born. The very stuff of our body is
made up of the five elements – earth, water, fire, air and ether, if that is
the case, how do we consider ourselves as outwardly existing, external to
nature?
Space is extended, as it were and is causing a dimension
of distance, all of which makes us believe that the stars are far, far away from
us. It is not so. Do you feel that your
head is far away from your toe?
The integrating power, which is the I-ness
abolishes the apparent distance measurable geometrically from the toe to the
head. Likewise, a cosmic cohesive force which
may be called the Cosmic Mind, or the divinities operating everywhere, is
actually the reason why we are existing as we are existing.
We live in this world, in this body, only so long
as our assertive nature of our false independence continues. When that is lifted up, we will not exist at
all.
We say, “We want Moksha (liberation), Salvation,
for which purpose we are practicing Sadhana”.
What is the kind of moksha that we are aspiring for? It is actually the
longing for mumukshutva (means the desire) – to free ourselves from the
shackles of individuality, from the limitations of particularized existence and
from the false identification.
Moksha, liberation, is just a simple thing. It is an enlargement of the consciousness
into the dimension of the widest possible extent, until it reaches a point
where it overcomes the ideas of even space and time.
What we require, is an intense training of our
own mind, enabling the mind to think in terms of its vast potentiality.
Our minds are the droplets of the cosmic Mind just
like the drops are the ocean only. To attain moksha, so much time is necessary
as it is necessary for a drop in the ocean to sink into the ocean. How much time does it require? It has only to realize that it is inseparable
from the Ocean.
We think of the individuality of ours is all in
all, not knowing that we cannot even exist without contribution or support from
nature outside and the vast atmosphere.
We have nothing in us except egoism (Ahamkara). Every moment we assert it – subconsciously,
consciously or otherwise. Like the poet who expressed, “ The egoism asserts
that it is better to be a King in hell than a servant in heaven”.
“I am what I am” is the affirmation of your
isolated individuality. Then there is no question of liberation.
“Whoever thinks of me deeply, undividedly, for
such a person I provide everything, and take care of what is so provided,” is a
great promise that we read in one of the verses of the Bhagavad Gita.
“ananyascintayantomam yejanah paryupasate tesam
nityabhiyuktanam yogakshemam vahamyahmam”.
It is not the son of Vasudeva or Devaki, Krishna,
who is speaking. Krishna is only a
symbolic mouth piece of this whole universe speaking to you: “Come unto me and
I shall give you what ever you need”. That
is what is called the Vishvarupa, which Bhagavan Sri Krishna showed. But you are telling it, “You go away from
here. I mind my business”. Then how will you get anything?
Unless you want liberation, it cannot come.
Mumukshutva is the longing for it. There
is no other qualification necessary except for one: you should want it. Your heart should want it.
Mind is nothing but the object that we think of. So Mumukshutva is longing for liberation,
from this limited individual physical existence.
