The Problems of Spiritual Life

by Swami Krishnananda

Sarah: In this life, in this world as I see it, in a limited consciousness (I recognise that), it is so hard just to tell the truth, and to earn a living, and to know how to be a good wife or husband, and how to act with love. It seems to me like that is the work that God has put in front of me. That is the work. It is right on my plate, it is right in front of me. But to always be in meditation—how do I know that is not…

SWAMIJI: What is your question? You have told so many things together.

Sarah: It seems to me that the work God gives you is right in front of you.

SWAMIJI: Whether God gives you or you have chosen—whatever it is, what is the trouble with the work?

Sarah: Because it seems here that it is suggested to remove yourself from that reality—to see that it is just a dream—earning a living included.

SWAMIJI: Just because it is a dream in its structural pattern, it does not mean that it is unreal. Dream also is a reality, because you can see it. Dream is not an unreal phenomenon; it is a real thing. Only it differs from waking in the degree of consciousness. You cannot ignore it as if it is not there; it is there. Even an illusion is a reality as long as you see it and trust it. If it is totally meaningless, why are you worried about it? A dream is unreal only when you wake up; when you are actually dreaming, it is not unreal. It is real—you can feel hungry, you can feel thirsty in dream. Why do you call it unreal? Anything that is experienced in consciousness is real to that extent and at that time.

You should not mix up two issues. You are contrasting two situations, but you should not compare and contrast anything. Each thing should be taken by itself. Why do you compare dream with waking? When it is experienced, it is there. Anything that you perceive is a reality; if it were not real, you would not perceive it. Why do you call it dream? You compare it with waking and then make a statement like that. You are not supposed to compare anything. Your experience is valid for you, though it is unreal from another point of view. Your problem is a very real problem, though for me it may look like a silly thing. So, you should not compare. The word ‘dream’ does not imply unreality; it only implies that it is a condition that is transcended by another condition. The word ‘dream’ is used only to explain that this subject is transcended by another experience. It does not imply that it is not existing. It does exist; and as long as it is existing in your consciousness, it is a reality for you and it will have its impact upon you. So, don’t call it dream and all that and then imagine that it has no substance. If you think that it has no substance, then your existence also has no substance, because you are also a part of the universal inter-relatedness of everything.

You have made a little mistake in the judgement. You are considering yourself as a reality and the perceived world as a dream. But you forget that you are also gone with it. If you are gone with the dream, then where is the problem for you? You have made a mistake in thinking that you are the real person and the world is unreal. But, it is not so. If the world is unreal, you in it are also unreal equally. Then whose problem are you discussing? The problem also becomes unreal. There is a mix-up of thought. Don’t say ‘dream’. It is a reality for you when you are in it, and its laws apply to you fully.

Sarah: And what about the goal?

SWAMIJI: Now, let it be. You are asking theoretical questions. You must be having some practical problem. Are you asking an academic question or you have got some real problem in you life?

Sarah: I spend a lot of time meditating…

SWAMIJI: Forget the meditation business. In your daily life of your work, have you any problem, or are you a happy person? I thought you are asking a question regarding your daily involvement.

Sarah: It is so much my daily life! This is the biggest question of my life.

SWAMIJI: Have you any problem, or are you happy always?

Sarah: I have been a happy person a lot, but now I am so troubled by the inability of myself to gain any wisdom.

SWAMIJI: Speak slowly. The inability to?

Sarah: To gain any wisdom.

SWAMIJI: Why are you worrying about wisdom? Just let the wisdom go. In what way are you affected by that in your daily life? You have enough wisdom to get on in life. In what way are you lacking it? I am asking, what problem you have. What suffering are you undergoing in your daily life, in your occupation, in your work, in your getting on, in your dealings, etc.? Or, you are quite all right—no problem?

Sarah: Well, thank God, in general things are good. I have enough to eat…

SWAMIJI: Then what is your question?

Sarah: Why is it there is something so dense, so ignorant? I feel so ignorant.

SWAMIJI: In what way are you ignorant?

Sarah: I do not see God as everything.

SWAMIJI: You will see it by gradual education. Why do people go to school? In order that they may get educated. And after ten years of study, their knowledge increases; then they understand things better. You have to undergo that education. You are on the way to it and when your understanding is complete by a training process, you will see things as you ought to see. How will you see it in the first step itself—in the beginning? You are in kindergarten, primary school, and suddenly you say, “I want to know everything.” You have to take enough time to undergo the necessary training. In due course, everything will come.

Sarah: And just living life as it presents itself to me is the training?

SWAMIJI: Training does not mean simply existing. Training is the process of undergoing a curriculum of studies which implies an adjustment of consciousness. Education is an adjustment of consciousness which is assisted by a curriculum of studies under a competent guide; otherwise, you will not be able to think correctly. If you can think in an educational fashion correctly at your home, you need not go to the school at all. At school the atmosphere is disciplined and streamlined in a particular manner; you are forced to think in a given way whereas in the house you can think as you like. So, you are asking me, “Is it all right if I just live as I am living?” No, it is not all right. Now you are living in a home atmosphere where you are free to think whatever you like, but you have to live in an educational atmosphere where you are supposed to think only in the manner you are expected to think. That is called training, which requires guidance. We require guidance, a superior.

Sarah: And that guidance is only in a place like an ashram?

SWAMIJI: Ashram or no ashram—some person is necessary to guide you, unless you do not require a guide and things are clear to you already.

Sarah: And you do not think the mistakes and the consequences that we are seeing in our life are enough to be a guide? One makes a mistake, and it becomes obvious.

SWAMIJI: No, that is called the trial and error method. That is not the educational way. You fall into a pit and then realise that you should not fall into a pit; but why should you fall into the pit if you can avoid it? Trial and error is not the educational system. Otherwise, everybody may learn by falling down and breaking their legs and then suffering. Education is the art of seeing that you do not unnecessarily get into trouble, instead of getting into the trouble and then learning a lesson thereby. To be healthy, it is not necessary to have an illness first.

However much trouble you undergo in life, you will never understand the wisdom of life, because the troubles are so many in the world that you cannot exhaust them in one life. Learning is not done by merely trial and error; it is by an internal discipline that is called education. It requires a guide; by oneself one cannot. So much we have been discussing here in the last one or two days. You have never heard such a thing in your life anywhere; and if you go to a marketplace will anybody talk like this? That is the difference between a disciplined atmosphere and a free atmosphere. This way in which we have been thinking in the last few days, you will never find people thinking anywhere in the world. No problem is there for them—everything is fine.

Constant company in satsanga (satsanga is company of the wise and the good) is very important. As much as possible, you must be in the company of the wise and the good, and if every day it is not possible to be in such company, occasionally at least you must resort to places where such training is possible. If nothing is possible, then you sit quiet and pray to God Almighty. He will illumine you and bring some light from inside. God knows your problems and He will remove them by your sincerely asking for it.

Sarah: And that is not just an egotistical desire, to want that?

SWAMIJI: Wanting God is not an egotistical desire. God is not an ego and, therefore, wanting a non-ego cannot be called an egotistical desire. The ego cannot want a non-ego. It is not possible. The ego wants an ego only, but God is not an ego, and so wanting God is not an egoistic desire; it is a non-egoistic asking. It is not desire; it is aspiration, as we call it. It is a desire to melt the ego, and so the opposite is the case. Asking for God is the desire to melt the ego. It is like a ball of ice standing before the sunlight. It cannot stand there and live. The ego cannot stand before God, or God-men.

Sarah: I want to ask you some questions.

SWAMIJI: Yes, you may ask.

Sarah: In Judaism, there is an idea that God makes contracts and pacts. What does that mean?

SWAMIJI: Covenants. In the Old Testament there are plenty of covenants mentioned. Covenant means an agreement with God.

Sarah: But, if He is Absolute, how can there be a covenant?

SWAMIJI: The Jews do not believe in God as the Absolute. He is, to them, a Transcendent Being. He is above the world, and, therefore, you can contact Him as you contact anybody in the world. The extra-cosmic transcendence of God is the concept of God in all Semitic religions. It is so in Judaism, in Christianity, in Islam, in Zoroastrianism, which are the four Semitic religions. Each one considers God as extra-cosmic, which means to say, above the universe; therefore, you can have your agreement, contract, prayer or covenant, whatever you call it. You can approach a big boss and have some kind of understanding with him. God looks like a boss because of this transcendence beyond the universe. You pray to God, looking up to the skies. Why do you look up to the skies when you pray to God? You have a feeling that he is not in this world. He is above and is not here.

But there is nothing wrong with it; it is one stage of religion. In this stage of religion, God is envisaged as a transcendent extra-cosmic power to which you can look for help by surrender, devotion and submission. But that is not the only meaning of religion. There other stages where the distance between man and God diminishes. In this concept of the transcendence of the God as an extra-cosmic reality, there are a lot of distances. You do not know how far God is—there is an endless distance in space and time. Afterwards, the distance becomes less and less in the acceptance of God, not merely as a Transcendent Being but also as immanent in all creation, right here and now.

God is not so far as you imagined Him to be earlier. He is also near; He is present in every atom. That is the second stage of religion. The third stage is where you yourself cannot be standing there outside Him, because of the all-pervadingness of God. These are the three stages of religion: transcendence, immanence and universality. All the three stages are valid; they are good in their own way. These are developmental stages of an ascent gradually from inadequate concepts to more adequate ones. So, all religions are good. There is nothing wrong with them; they are all different degrees of approach in an ascending order.

Sarah: And the Jews have an idea that they are chosen people, that they are a separate people from the rest of the world. What is the meaning? Why do they even come to that concept?

SWAMIJI: It is also one stage of thinking. You are a devotee of God, and so you consider non-devotees as not so equal to you. Suppose you are honestly a devotee of God and find others are atheists; don’t you think that they are a little inferior to you? Though you are not supposed to think like that, you have somehow a predilection to think that these non-devotee atheists are inferior and you are a superior person. Whether you are justified in thinking like that or not, it is left to you to judge. A holy man thinks that unholy people are damned. Now, is he justified in thinking so? He may be or may not be; it is a point of view. There may be some truth and validity in their feeling that they are chosen people because they are really devoted to God; but whether they are justified in thinking that others are inferior, that is a different matter.

Sarah: But there is no idea that certain people are chosen for certain roles; they are all equal with different roles? Is there any idea of that as truthful?

SWAMIJI: Everybody has a role to play. It does not mean that one is superior or inferior to the other.

Sarah: But there are different roles?

SWAMIJI: Different laws and different positions—each one is placed in different positions and stations in life, and from the point of view of the particular station in which you are placed, your work is decided. It does not mean that you are superior or inferior. You are fit for that, and others are fit for another thing. You cannot say that a shopkeeper is superior to the farmer, or a farmer is superior to shopkeeper. They are doing different kinds of occupation in society, meant for the stability of humanity. Nobody is superior, nobody is inferior. So, each one has to play a role according to the circumstances in which one is placed, and there is no question of comparison. Nobody is chosen, actually speaking; everybody is chosen. If all are children of God, who is not chosen—unless you believe that some are not the creation of God?

Sarah: And rituals in religion?

SWAMIJI: Rituals are very necessary; they are external gestures that you perform to express your inner feelings. Don’t you say, “Thank you very much. I shall see you again”? Why do you do this? You can mentally think it, and go away. What is the harm? The gesture helps you in expressing your feelings. Ritual is necessary. Anything that you ‘perform’ is a ritual, an expression of what you think. What you are is the spirit; what you do is the act, or the ritual.

Sarah: And what about rituals? You know, there is a Jewish rite when you eat special bread, there is circumcision—all different things that are not expressing my feelings.