Spiritual Message for the Day – The One Appearing as Many by Swami Krishnananda
Baba Times Digest© | 26 June 2014 17:00 EST | New York Edition
The One Appearing as Many
Divine Life Society Publication: The Great Drama of Creation by Swami Krishnananda
(Spoken on June 22, 1997)
Visitor: Swamiji, last time you told us about Lord Siva showing the Vishwarupa wherein a number of Krishnas were coming out of him, and in the same Mahabharata Krishna showed the Vishwarupa with a number of Rudras coming out of him.
Swamiji: It is only one being appearing as two things. There is no Siva and there is no Krishna; there is only one being appearing as this and that. He can put on any dress and manifest himself. There are no two Gods. There is only one, and you can call Him by any name. It is the Supreme Being. On this side it is Siva, on that side it is Krishna, and on another side it is also Devi. In the Devi Mahatmya, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, Indra, everybody started coming out from her body, so He can manifest from anything.
Visitor: But there have been times when these gods have been confronting each other.
Swamiji: They do not confront each other. You do not understand them properly.
So much heat the sun is creating, and so many floods he will create afterwards. Now, why is he doing two contradictory things? There is such a burning heat, and then there is such a flood that everything is destroyed. They are not conflicting; they are two interconnected things.
The whole complex of space, time and causation as God has created is operating systematically, like an organism of the body. So where is the vainglorious importance of a human individual? The universe is operating, not me, not anybody else. If this consciousness can be maintained by us, the world shall be our friend. If the body is not a friend of the finger, it will not lift. I do not say my body is lifting the finger but “ I am lifting the finger”.
This cooperation between the physical organism and its parts is to be seen everywhere in the universe. The world operation is a mystery and the basic controller of even our breath. Can anybody answer the question of why the heart is not sleeping when we are sleeping? There is a cosmic force which keeps the individual intact for a purpose which is beyond the understanding of human nature.
This is high psychology, cosmology, and creational philosophy, which is simply stunning if you think over it. You will hold your breath in admiration. You are an official in the government of the universe which orders the local governments to operate in a particular way. All operations in the world are internally connected.
These little things that I am saying are like a healing balm to the troubled mind of a person. It will calm your heart, and make your mind peaceful. You will be confident that after all, things are not so bad as they appear. There is some benefactory influence operating in the universe. There are friends in the universe. It is not true that all are enemies only. The sun and the moon and the stars and the breath and the Ganga and the Himalayas, they are our friends.
There were great saints who could speak to the trees and to the leaves. There was a saint in Italy, called Saint Francis of Assisi. Birds, wolves and jackals would gather at his feet when he gave a sermon. He was speaking to Jesus Christ, he was speaking to God, but all these came from the forest.
Sri Krishna blew the flute. That flute drew all the cattle and all the people. Men, women, children ran, because it was the flute of the cosmos – God calling. When God calls, everybody runs like rivers running to the ocean.
Visitor: We do not find in our actual life all these gods, flute, and…
Swamiji: How will you see it when you are not opening your eyes?
Visitor: My eyes are wide open.
Swamiji: You are opening the physical eyes, but the inner eye is not opening. Your intellectual eye, emotional eye, spiritual eye should open. You are not seeing yourself with your eyes.
Visitor: I may not be of that level, but…
Swamiji: Now that you are able to understand what I am saying, it shows that you are also in that level. You are intelligent enough to understand what it means. The only thing is, you are unable to coordinate your daily life with the universal life. You are creating segments, a separation between the secular and the spiritual. There is no such thing. There is no secular, and there is no spiritual. They are one organic whole. Life is one. You cannot separate them. It requires a little bit of meditation, deep thinking.
There is a need for every person to be alone to oneself for a few minutes every day. You cannot be so busy that you forget your own self. When you get up in the morning, you should think, “Who am I? From where I have come? What kind of person am I? Before I became a very important official, what was I? When I retire, what am I going to be? Who took care of me when I was a little child in the cradle? Now who is going to take care of me when I am old and unable to walk? How in the middle I have become very important?”
These forces which are playing a great drama of this creation are utilising us for their purposes. We are the ambassadors of God. We have been sent here for a purpose. The purpose is not to violate the law of the universe and assert an independence on our own. The ambassador is beholden to the government which sends him, and if the government calls him, he has to go back. Though he is stationed in one country, he belongs to another country altogether.
So we are on the Earth, but we belong to high heaven, which is another realm from which we have come. There are levels of existence: earthly, astral, celestial, cosmical, causal, the Absolute. There are many levels of being, just as there are molecules, atoms, electrons, magnetic forces, and then powers which are commensurate with all things. If you go on diving deep into the material objects in the world, you will find basically they are one. Though millions of bubbles may be there in the ocean, at the root they are one ocean. So all these individualities of ours – animate, inanimate, whatever – are like bubbles in the sea of cosmic existence, which is ruled by a Supreme Intelligence.
You are intelligent, I am intelligent; we have intelligence in us. This intelligence is a drop of cosmic intelligence. Just as a drop of water is a part of the ocean, our intelligence, our intellectuality, our rationality, whatever it is, is a drop in the sea of the universal intelligence. We are called jivas, individuals, because of the droplet of intelligence that we have got; and the universal intelligence is God.
Without the organic cooperative activity of the body, no limb can operate, and whatever we are today is due to a blessing we have received due to the good karma that we did in the past. If we are enjoying life today with status, with finance, with power, with good health, and everything is okay, it is because we have done some good deeds in the past. We cannot deserve comfort which we have not given to other people. There is no such thing as free service. All of you are great people today because you have done great deeds in the previous birth, though you may not remember what deeds you have done. Now, if you want to become still greater in the next birth, in this birth you must do good deeds because you are exhausting all your virtuous deeds of the previous birth by enjoying them this birth. What about the next birth? Whatever you have done now will come there. So you should not imagine from your individual point of view that everything is okay in one second.
The whole universe is the kingdom of heaven, and we are living inside it. The joys of life, the happiness we feel in our own heart is the pura punya phala, the result of good actions that we have performed. We have done great charities, great good deeds, and great services in the previous life. Therefore, now we are like a king. And if we want to become a greater king in our next birth, we must do some more work now in this birth.
What can be a greater service than prayer to the Almighty God? Be grateful. We have to show our gratitude to the Creator of the universe, and He will show us His willingness to serve us. It is difficult to get a thing in the world; it takes time. But to contact God it takes one second because eternity does not require time to come here. That is the blessing.
Excerpts from:
The One Appearing as Many - The Great Drama of Creation by Swami Krishnananda
If you would like to purchase the print edition, visit:
The Divine Life Society E-Bookstore
If you would like to contribute to the dissemination of spiritual knowledge please contact the General Secretary at:
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.?subject=Contribution%20to%20Dissemination%20of%20Spiritual%20Knowledge">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
SEND FEED BACK ON THIS ARTICLE >>> Email to BT Digest EditorThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.?subject=DLS%20Posts"> (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.?subject=DLS%20Posts">