The Attainment of the Infinite

by Swami Krishnananda

Sensory perception is the reason why we are unable to concen­trate the mind on anything that is of a universal nature. The senses do not know what universality is. They are wedded to individuality, particularity, segregation, and isolation. To make matters worse, we have five sense organs; five different affirmations are made at the same time. Like a head of a family pulled in different directions by the members thereof, the individual consciousness inside is pulled in five different directions externally by five different sense organs.

If we see a thing, it is not enough; we have also to hear it. A deaf man does not enjoy the world, though he can see the world. A person who cannot smell cannot enjoy the taste of a dish. If we have caught cold and the nostrils are clogged completely, we will not enjoy our daily meal. You will be wondering what the connection is: "I am eating with the tongue; why is the nose interfering?" They are interconnected. It is necessary to touch the food, to hear how it is made, to smell it also, to see it, and to taste it. All things should take place simultaneously. If one limb is not operating, the food is not tasty. We cannot enjoy it.

So, there is a fivefold onslaught of sensory activity taking place, even in our little contact with a single object of the world. There is a deliberate attempt, as it were, on the part of these fivefold apertures of sensation to deceive us completely. Every moment we are deceived by the activities of the sense organs, which tell us five different things.

Fortunately, we have only five sense organs. Suppose we had ten or fifteen; then, it would be still worse. Now, because of the five sensations, we are seeing five different objects – earth, water, fire, air, and ether – because these five elements are the five counterparts of the five sensations. Suppose we had one hundred sensations; we would see one hundred elements, and there would be no end for the variety in creation.

It does not mean that we are seeing all the variety of crea­tion with the eyes. We see a limited segment of creation, due to the limitation of the sensory activity. If we have got all eyes, and all ears, and all taste, then we will be just seeing endless cosmic variety of creative dissipation, and we would not know where we are standing. Because only five senses are there, we are saved this tragedy, but they are doing enough mischief for us.

It is said that sense control is necessary for the purpose of engaging oneself in meditation. What is the meaning of 'sense control'? Is it closing the eyes, plugging the ears, and stuffing some cotton into the nose? It is nothing of the kind. We may plug the holes of the sense apparatus; it does not mean that these senses have been restrained. The senses are not what we see outwardly. The eyeballs are not the eyesight.

There is an impulsion inside, an energy content, a potential for outwardness; that is the sense organ. Whether it is the eye or the ear, or whatever it is, the sensation that we feel through these apertures is the sense organ. The sensation is the organ, not the physical fleshy substance of the organ, so any kind of plugging the nose, closing the mouth, and stuffing the ears will not work, because even a blind man has a desire to see, a deaf man has a desire to hear, and a person who has lost taste in the tongue has a desire to eat. Desire cannot be absent merely because the organs are not operating.

This is the reason why we must understand, first of all, what sense control is. It is the reverting of the very consciousness of wanting a thing through the sense organs, and universalising it. A particularising tendency of the sense organs is to be absorbed into a universalising tendency of mental perception. Rather than think­ing through a particular sense organ, we should think purely in terms of the mind, proper. Pure reason, uncontaminated by the influence of sensations, should be our guide.

But, where is the pure reason? It does not operate at all; it is dead already. Usually, our reason corroborates and confirms the reports supplied to it by the sense organs. If the sensations say, "It is like this," the reason says, "Yes, it is like that." The reason cannot operate imper­sonally, in a detached way. But there are occasions when the reason can operate in an independent manner – for instance, your feeling that you would like to be much better than what you are now. This is a rational operation; the senses do not tell you like that. No sense organ can tell you that it is better to be more than what you are. It is the pure reason that is operating when telling you that you are a finite individual, and you would like to break this finitude. The sensations will not tell that; they are satisfied with finitude. But you have got an inter­nal higher buddhi, or intelligence proper, uncontaminated by the reports of the sense organs, which tells you, like a good friend, that you are not so important as you think you are. You are a finite non-entity. You are helpless. Your very existence as a finite is due to the cooperation of other finites, like many donkeys joining together and forming a good United Nations organisation; it will not help you.

The reason is still alive in every one of us; only, it is submerged by the impetuous activities of the sense organs that run outward, while the reason moves upward. The reason moves upward in the sense that it tells you that there is something higher than what you are. The Infinite does necessarily exist, and this conviction follows from the very acceptance of the fact that you are limited and located in one place. You do not feel happy because you are locked up in one location. You do not like to feel that you are just one Tom, Dick and Harry among many other people. You would like to be much more than this.

This desire to be more than what you are is an activity of the higher reason. You are aware that you will die one day, but the higher reason says that it is good not to die and you must find out some means of perpetuating yourself eternally. This is the reason's longing. But the senses interfere: "Keep quiet! You will die one day, and you cannot become immortal." There is a clash between the higher reason, which is our real friend, and the turbulent sense organs. The senses know that the body will perish one day, but the reason tells us that there is something in us which is more than the perishable element.

How can such a desire to become deathless arise in a world where everything is dying? Every person goes; no one lives forever. In such a world of utter destruction, how is it possible for anyone to develop a tendency to expect deathlessness?

There is a universalising force operating within us, an ishvarabrahman, we may say, as an undercurrent of the activity of the externalising process. We know very well that we will perish together with other perishing objects, but still we have a hope that we shall be better: "Even if I take another birth, I would like to be a better person in the next birth." This is the desire. Nobody thinks that one should be worse in the next birth. If possible, I shall be wider, larger, tending to infinitude." These are the voices of the higher reason. It is the atma shakti getting reflected through the perspicacious intelligence in us, which we call the intellect.

The intellect is of two kinds, the lower and the higher – ashuddha buddhi, and shuddha buddhi. Shuddha buddhi is the transparent intellectuality, the rationality which reflects the cosmic operations in their integrated form, whereas the lower one reflects the diversity seen by the sense organs.

We are simultaneously living in two worlds - the world of phenomenality, and the world of noumenality. We are in the world of eternity, and in the world of time; we are in the world of death, and at the same time in the world of immortality. Viveka shakti, vichara shakti, the capacity to investigate into the truth of the matter in this fashion, is the precondition of attempting to sit and meditate. Unless the mind is free from the muddle of confused thinking, concentration will not be possible. People complain that their mind is not concentrating. How will it concentrate when the reason is dead, the senses are active, and the body is impetuous?

The inward restraint of these kinds of forces that are contrary to the injunctions of our higher reason is the tapas that we have to practise. Tapas is not a torture; it is an educational process. When you study more and more, and learn things larger and larger in their comprehension, your educational career rises from one level to another level; you move towards larger universalities. A person who is sufficiently educated can think in general terms, but a person who is not so trained will think only in particular terms. He says, "My land, my property, everything is mine." When he says "mine", he means only this bodily individuality.

But a person who is properly educated in the art of general­ised principles can draw conclusions of a universal nature from particular instances. That person will be able to generalise the mental activity also, and then it is possible that the mind will yield. Unless the mind is satisfied, it cannot be made to work in any direction. An unsatisfied servant cannot do any work. You should see that the mind is not unsatisfied. It should not feel that you are bullying it, belabouring it, or cudgeling it; that will not work.

The mind has to be trained by an educational method, an application of reason which is called viveka and vichara, the investigative capacity. Perpetually, we should be engaged in trying to probe into the structure of experience, like a scientist in a laboratory – the more he discovers, the less he is satisfied; he wants to know more and more things. Distant things look near, afterwards; particularised, located things appears as pervading everywhere when we generalise things.

In this way, gradually, by effort of days and months and years, we must come back to ourselves. As I mentioned yesterday, coming back to ourselves is the most difficult thing ever. That which is far away can easily be seen and understood, but a thing that is nearer cannot easily be understood, and the nearest thing is your own self. So, you cannot control yourself.

The most turbulent, repressive element in us is our own selves. We can be masters of everybody, but we cannot be masters of our own selves because here, in our case, we are the teacher as well as the taught; we are the schoolmaster and the classroom, at the same time. It is the mind that becomes the investigator and the teacher, and it is the very object that is to be investigated and studied. The mind is the subject and the object at the same time during self-analysis. As nobody can understand how one and the same thing can be subject and object, it is not possible to handle the mind so easily.

It requires satsanga. Good things should be dinned into our ears every day. Wherever you go, you should see and hear only good things. If you are not able to hear good things, go to a place where you hear good things, because the habit of inundating the mind with good information adds to the strength of the mind in the direction of universalised perception.

Avyabdhipanan mahatah sumero unmulanad api api vanyajanat sadho vishavat chitta nigrahah. This is the advice given by Sage Vasishtha to Ramachandra in the Yoga Vasishtha: "Do not be under the impression that you can subdue yourself. You can subdue anybody else, but not yourself. You can drink the whole ocean, you can simply shake the whole Himalayas; it is possible. You can drink fire, but not control the mind, because who are you to control the mind? You yourself are the mind." The controlling activity becomes inoperative, because here the controller is the same as the thing that is to be controlled.

It is self-inwardisation, also known as self-analysis, tending towards self-consciousness, with the aim of Self-realisation. That art of the higher reason which is purified of the dross of sensory desires will help us. Years of effort may be necessary.

You have to learn the art of being alone to yourself. I have mentioned all this in the earlier days. Do not be always thinking of other people. You are sufficient unto yourself. You are your own strength, and you are your own failing. All that is necessary for you is hidden inside you. You have only to bring it out. This conviction that all potency, all power, and all that is necessary is hiddenly present in our mind will convince the mind that it has a self-sufficient comprehensiveness, and it can be happy wherever it is. If you can convince yourself, then you can be happy wherever you are, under any circumstances, because all that you need is potentially present within you, and you can summon it at any moment. If you cannot believe this, if you think that your welfare lies in others' hands, in other things, then the mind will go outwardly with the impulse of creation.

The liberation of the spirit, called moksha, is capable of demanding the greatest price. What does God want from you? It is not some banana, not some kichiri, not some prasad, apples and jam; no, because these things that you are offering to God do not belong to you.

What really belongs to you should be offered, and what really belongs to you is your own self. Self-sacrifice, or self-surrender is the act that pleases the Universal Being. No amount of study of the Vedas, no austerity, no study of books, no charity, no philanthropy, and no goodness that you can consider worthwhile in the social sense can touch the spirit, which is unrelated to everybody else. 'Unrelated' effort is the word. Any amount of thinking in terms of relationship with another thing weakens the mind. You have to think independently by yourself, as an all-inclusive force, sufficient unto yourself – you are complete in yourself, and you do not want anything else; you are happy with what you are, not with what you have.

Do not be satisfied with what you are, but be satisfied with what you have. Be satisfied with what you have, but do not easily be satisfied with what you are, because you cannot know what you are. Various shapes will be seen in what you are, and they will be kaleidoscopic, chameleon-like pictures, and you can misguide yourself by imagining that you are a perfected being. Be humble before yourself, with humility, utter self-negation, and self-satisfaction, and not wanting anything outside. Belief in the perfection that is hidden in one's own self will bend the mind in the direction of perfection.