What is Knowledge

by Swami Krishnananda

Now, you may wonder: “Am I happy only when the mind is happy, and is this all that I expect in this world? Or is there anything else in me?” Many people imagine that mental peace is very important, and they seem to be very clear in their minds when they say this – but really, they are clear about nothing. The words “I want peace of mind” are merely words; the meaning of these words is not very clear, and cannot be very clear, because you cannot know what you mean by ‘peace’, or  ‘happiness’, or  ‘unhappiness’. You cannot easily know what happiness and unhappiness mean, if you attribute your happiness and unhappiness to factors other than yourself: “If I get something, I am happy. If I do not get it, I am unhappy.” So, you feel that you are a slave of that which is supposed to make you happy or unhappy. Are you a slave? Would anyone like to be a slave of anybody? But, all those who imagine that they will be happy only due to the possession of objects are utter slaves, and this also applies to the causes of unhappiness. On the one hand, you cry for freedom and say you are very independent, but your ‘independence’ is a name that you give to a total dependence on factors other than yourself, which you think is the cause of happiness or unhappiness, whereas nothing of the kind is the truth. You make your own destiny. Your own fate is in your hands; nobody else is the cause. It is futile to argue that other people are the cause of what you are, because nobody will interfere with you, and nobody has any business with you.

But we seem to be imagining a different world before us – a world that is totally different from the world as it really is. The conditions of our internal existence, though they may appear to be mental for the time being, are something more. Ordinary lay thinking will not be able to know what is actually meant either by peace, happiness or unhappiness, because the lay mind has a simple answer: “I want this. I do not have it. Therefore, I am unhappy,” and: “I wanted it. I got it. Therefore, I am happy.” These are simple statements that people glibly make, as if everything is clear when these statements are made.

Your position is not merely the physical body’s position. Of course it is also, at the same time, the position that the mind maintains, but there is something more than even this. The necessity for the body to maintain a particular position in yoga – or at any time, for the matter of that – arises because the mind has to maintain a particular position in order that you may be psychically happy and healthy. A psychically unhealthy person cannot be regarded as healthy, though it may appear that the body is well fed and is maintained properly. The need for a balance in the physical system arises because of its association with the mind; and vice versa, the mind is associated with the body. But the conditions that the mind expects in order that it may be healthy, happy, or peaceful – for its wholesome existence and satisfaction – are determined by factors which are supermental. These are conditions which go beyond the mind itself. We cannot know why we wish to have peace of mind at all. Why do you cry for peace of mind? Let it not be there; what does it matter? You cannot answer this question. You very stubbornly and arrogantly assert: “I want peace of mind” – as if you know all the things in the world when you have said this, and there is nothing more to say.

The requirements of the mind in association with the body that make you a psychophysical organism – the requirements of this situation of yours – depend upon the very structure of the universe. You are not such a free person as you imagine, though there is nothing to prevent you from being ultimately free if you are going to be in a proper position and harmony with that which is the only cause of real freedom; and if you accept that you are inseparable from the inner constituents of the universe – being yourself a constituent factor in the very make-up of the universe – the position that the universe would expect you to maintain is the position that it itself maintains.

We are now slowly moving beyond the limits of ordinary human understanding, which satisfies itself merely with the knowledge that everything is fine if the body is well fed and the itching mind is provided with the tentative joys which it seeks from fleeting objects. But even these fleeting objects appearing to give a temporary satisfaction to the psychophysical organism – even this appearance – is due to something that is happening in the universe as a whole. The causes are something else. But we are blissfully ignorant of the causes, not only of our happiness and unhappiness, but even of our very existence here in this world for this short span of life. What makes it possible for us to be alive in this world and be breathing? Is it under our control entirely? You know very well that you do not breathe because of your power over the breath, that it has something to say independently. The heart does not function because you are working very hard for it; you have nothing to say about it, and it is your master entirely, as is the breath. There are things which keep us alive, and yet remain totally independent of what we imagine we are. Likewise, there are umpteen factors which range beyond our sense perception and mental understanding, which decide what is expected of us. But we decide ourselves what is expected of us, as if we are omniscient: “I know what is required of me, and you are nobody to tell me.” “I cannot accept anybody’s advice because I know all things.” “I am not prepared to listen to anybody’s advice because I think for myself and do not wish to listen to anybody.” If these are the outlooks generally maintained in your life, then you naturally pay the price for it, and you cannot excuse yourself merely because you do not know the law of the universe.

Law is impartial in every sense of the term; it has neither friend nor enemy. When I speak of law, I actually refer to the manner in which the universe operates. The system that is maintained by the universe throughout the stages of what we call its evolutionary process is the law that it maintains simultaneously; and if we are also subject to a sort of evolutionary process because of the fact that we are inseparably contents of this process, it is incumbent upon us to follow this law of the evolutionary process. The universe evolves as a total whole, and not by bits or parts – even as, when we grow from the state of a child to a more adult condition, it is the whole of the personality that grows, evolves. Here you have an example of what evolution means. Nothing independently, as an extraneous part, maintains a say of its own. We grow entirely. Every cell of the body participates in this process of growth, and it is not that the nose grows today, and the ears grow tomorrow, and the legs grow the day after tomorrow. There is a perpetual total action taking place in the whole organism when it grows. This is evolution as we see it daily, with our own eyes.

Likewise, evolution in a cosmical, natural, physical, or astronomical sense is also a total movement of the universe. Remember what I told you a second before: Inasmuch as the evolution you have observed in the growth of your own personality is total, and the universal evolution is total, and also at the same time because you are inseparably related to the universe in every way, your evolution and the universal evolution are one and the same. Your evolution cannot be independent of the universal evolution.

Therefore, to grow into a state of perfection, towards which is the movement of the universe by way of evolution, you have to participate as an entire personality, and not as a partial individual, with this requirement of the universe. All the layers of the universe are inside you. The human being is a cross-section of the cosmic structure. Thus, whatever is in you, is in the universe; whatever is in the universe, is also in you. It is a mutual cooperation that is taking place in an organic manner, and not merely as a cooperation of two friends. There are no two individuals here. To the system of yoga, at least, the human individual and the universe are not two things. And again, to bring in the analogy of the human organism, your fingers and toes, and your own body, are not two things. It is one thing only that we refer to by two different terms.

If the world and you are not two different things, your growth is conditioned entirely by the system that the world maintains. Thus, the position maintained in yoga – the so-called asana – is, of course, a physical position, because the physical world and the physical body are both there; but remember that the physical position is not the entire position of yours because – to repeat again – the body may be maintaining a so-called balance but, at the same time, the mind may be imbalanced.

It may look that the imbalanced mind is maintaining a physical balance, but this is not yoga exercise because the exercise called yoga asana is the posture that ‘you’ maintain, and not merely the posture that the body maintains. And what are ‘you’? Think a little bit about what you are. It is of course true that whatever you are is associated with this little physical body, but you are inseparably related to many other things also as a citizen of the universe. You belong to a larger government presided over by a power which has its own principles, rules, regulations and laws, operating inexorably and impartially in such a way that you cannot have a worthwhile rest even for a moment if you are not in a position of harmony with this system that operates. Any pain felt in any part of the body is a pain felt by the whole body. Any imbalance anywhere is the imbalance that is communicated to the internal core of the universe.

Thus, the yoga system takes you beyond the ordinary limits of mere social thinking, political thinking and economic thinking, to cosmical thinking. If this is not possible, yoga is also not possible. It begins with little performances, but these little performances have inside themselves, immanently and hiddenly present, the requirement of the largest and the greatest. The highest principle of universality is operating even in the littlest of our actions. This makes every action a yoga.

You have heard that there is a system of yoga called karma – karma yoga. Karma yoga means yoga of action. Your performances, your deeds, your operations, and whatever you seem to be busy with, become a yoga if these performances are the emanations of the balanced position that you are maintaining because, as you know, what you are doing is actually an expression of what you really are inside. It is not possible to be honest to one’s own self by doing what is not one’s own essential nature. Your action and speech are an expression of the contents of your own inner personality. Thus, the yoga exercise as a sort of activity that is visible to the eyes is a yoga, no doubt, because it is, at once, an internal position that is maintained simultaneously together with this external performance, by simultaneously maintaining a consciousness of your requirements in the light of the law of the universe.

Yoga is a universal science. It is not a science of the laboratory or the classroom. It is not something that you do invisibly, unknown to people. There is no such thing as secret yoga. It is a public performance, in the sense that every inch in the universe will know what you are doing, just as the whole body will know what is happening to any part of the body. The consciousness of your being inseparably related to a larger operation of forces in the universe is important if your yoga exercises are to become meaningful and fruitful. You must know, therefore, that yoga exercises are not like outdoor games. They are not a public performance of any kind of known exercises. It is an internal dedication that you are performing. There is a total difference between yoga physical exercises and exercises in the form of games in the field outside.

Thus, even a yoga asana is a worship of God. It becomes a divine activity on your part because your physical body is not outside you, and you are not outside that which the universe is and that which is the ultimate controlling principle of the universe. Yoga is all life put together, and not merely one part of your life.

Hence, through the media of the performance of yoga exercises, and other systems known as pranayama, pratyahara, etc., you are gradually tuning your internal layers – together with the body, of course – with the corresponding internal layers of the universe. In every level of your attunement, you are one with the law of the universe, so there cannot be a moment’s unhappiness for you. Unhappiness is a chimera; it cannot be. The world exists as an embodiment of great joy. As the Upanishads are never tired of telling us, ananda, bliss, is the root of this universe and, therefore, the outcome of this ananda cannot be duhkha. Duhka appears to be present as a sort of evil due to a maladjustment of our personality with the requirements of the cosmos.