Krishn Janmaashthami 2009
In the Valley of Gods, we celebrated Lord Krishn’s birth during the day and, as is traditional in India, at midnight, in torrential rain that mirrored the storms that accompanied the Avatar’s arrival on earth. Devotees from the local community, across India and the rest of the world came together to sing, meditate, receive prasaad, perform aarti and, above all, listen to Swamiji relate the story of Krishn’s birth and expand our understanding of the nature of Krishn. This is an edited transcript of Swamiji’s talk given in the late evening approaching midnight.
Let us close the eyes. For ages and ages, from time immemorial, the world has existed. In every age, human beings come on earth as innocent children and become aware of time and space, which includes their bodies. And this is the ongoing saga of world existence, till the world is dissolved. But it does not end after dissolution, it again manifests, and again time starts, space starts and manifestation begins again.
And, in all the ages, there are hardly any people who know what is there when the world is not and when the world forms are dissolved. How are they dissolved and after dissolution where do they go and where do they stay? And how do they manifest again and come into the varieties of forms? Above our heads is the sky, and below our feet, the earth, and below the earth is yet another region. How do these three vibhaag, or divisions, take place? It is not known even though the scriptures speak about it. Many people learn the scriptures and speak about it, but the anubhooti, or experience, does not take place in their heads.
Why? Because the human being is developed with imagination, illusion, ego, intellect, mind. Thus, you do not get the full information that You are first and everything else is later on; You are first and the manifest world is later on. You are first; even before your body comes into manifestation, You are. And this information has been given by Lord Krishn; that is why his ideal is very, very precious. Because we all want to know. If knowledge is not given, we will never know; and we all want to know who we are. In all ages, humanity has been living in this utter darkness or ignorance.
The information of your true nature comes through Pure Consciousness, Pure Existence; the symbolic representation of which is Lord Krishn, who spoke in the Gita. That is why the informer is very, very important for all of us, and for humanity as a whole. Because the information has only been constructed between birth and death, between the beginning of manifestation and the dissolution of the manifestation. But why the information is not before manifestation, and after the manifestation is over, as well as continuing in between birth and death, appearance and disappearance?
What is the information that we all seek, those who are tuned in to the highest awareness? We know we exist, but each one also does not know how it all happens. Also, there are persons who became stultified, blocked. They never care, yet they eat and drink, they continue living the life in happiness and health, in plenty and lack, prosperity and poverty, but they don’t care. That is why you are very special people: you have a sense of inquiry and inquisitiveness, and you want that information, which I attribute to that Being who is called the Supreme Reality, the Truth. Truth is not a form, not a paper, not a flower, not a light; these are all made artificially by human beings. An artist draws a picture, another colours it, someone else makes the paper—even though they do not make the trees. They boast of “making” and having a sense of intelligence and creativity to make those artificial things, which are available for all of us.
But the very human being has not been made by a human being. He has no knowledge about who made him, how his form got made, how his nerves arrived inside the body, how the structure of the skin or hair appeared, how, after birth, teeth appeared, how blood came in the veins, how life goes on and how life gets withdrawn.
Therefore, the wise ones have come on earth and delivered the information of the Truth. Today, we are observing Lord Krishn’s birth, which took place in this month, on this day, when it was raining at twelve o’clock midnight. All the stories can be told and heard, but if human beings are not there, what is the value of those stories? Yet, we have come to observe that we grow only through stories. Mother tells us, grandma tells us all about the rivers, sky, mountains, plains, crops, people and their existence.
So we are inquiring about that which will evolve knowledge from our mind or intellect and be a power of knowingness, applicable to our bodies and lives in the days and years to come. What is that?
As soon as I came, I asked you to close the eyes. I also did not speak for some time. What was that? Maun, or silence, of words. This is first type of silence. The second type of silence is that your senses were working, but you stopped seeing and hearing. The third type of silence is when those who cannot keep their eyes closed or stop their thinking, but they are trying hard, with great force and power that their eyes should remain closed, ears should remain blocked and mind should not work. This is the third type of maun, or silence. All three types of silence are being observed by many, but the result is not advantageous or beneficial or perfect.
If speeches did not work and being maun or stopping action has not worked, then there is a desire in everyone: what is going to work? I have already told you that the ideal informer was Lord Krishn and he gave the fourth type of maun, or silence, which is even while speaking, even while allowing the senses to move, the organs to move and allowing life to continue on. The technique has been given, the information has been given and you got it, but we repeat it again and again. That is the fourth type of maun, of silence. Silence of what? Your decisive intellect. Your intellect should decide today, hearing me, that I am the Whole. That’s all.
Since it became difficult to understand, I have been talking for the past forty years, again and again, to bring in the meaning of this sentence: I am the Whole. Then birth is not and death is not. And if in the Whole they are included, we don’t mind.
So growth through our talks is about the unfoldment of the Space, which is I. If it is not known what I is, then there is a space of ignorance or forgetfulness. If this is so, you will never get to the Space. And that Space, I say, you have the power to know. And you, too, in your heart of hearts, know that you have the power to know the I. But you have been trained in schools and colleges and at home that I is the body and the body is I; or I is the limbs and the limbs are I; the house is I and I am the house; the car is I and I am the car; the world is I and I am the world; and the appearance is I and I am the appearance, the disappearance is I and I am disappearance. This is what you have been taught.
Therefore, we need the information of being Aatmavaan [Self-Realized]. It is written in Chapter II, verse 45 of the Bhagavad Gita: Friends, traigunyavishayaa vaydaa—the world of knowledge and your knowledge about the world is based on the three powers of nature, or prakriti, the three gunas, sattwa, rajas and tamas. It is not known what these are, so someone has to get it into your head what sattwa power is. I say you have the power to know, providing I speak and you hear and examine. Sattwa power you will come to know when you take a seed and put it in the ground. And in the morning, the sprout arises. There is no man sitting over there, only a seed and the earth, but the sprout arises. What is that power that made the seed produce the sprout? Sattwa power.
So sattwa power is that which makes the seed manifest. If it is manifested, and it grows very quickly, what will happen to the sprout? It will become a very thin thread, which is miles long. That is due to the power of rajas. But a third power comes and says, wait a minute, stop, don’t begin again so soon. So after rajogun, a third power, tamogun, comes and makes the sprout stationary for some time. After that the sprout again grows, and one day becomes a tree.
Lord Krishn spoke to his friend Arjun, “Listen to me. Your mind is uneasy, you are upset and frustrated and find yourself in the middle of the war, duty and responsibility. You do not know what has happened to you. You are fully able, in all possible ways. You have seven million people in your army. And you are still feeling very dull and dead.”
Arjun asked what he should do. Krishn said, “Listen to me and the knowledge will come out of your heart.” He said, “Traigunyavishayaa vaydaa, all the knowledge you are applying to this situation is the outcome of these three powers, it is not yours.”
After hearing this, Arjun was silent. He was competent enough to ask another question. He said, “I don’t understand. What should I do?” Krishn said, “You have the power: do not apply this system of the three powers that do not belong to you. Be free from these powers.” He said, “Nistraigunyo bhav, be free completely; take yourself out of these three gunas that have made your body tree, in which you have got wrapped up. Be free from these three gunas.”
The technique is there, but a man is not fully capable of understanding it, so a master or informer is needed who will constantly work only to evolve that power by which you become free of the three gunas. Wherever you go is three gunas; the whole world is constituted of three gunas, nature. And you are convinced, yes, the world is made of nature. And who made the nature? That is not the information you are given. And you don’t want to get it, because you think it is not mine and it is not written somewhere.
Yet when you go to school... A, B, C, D, E, F, twenty-six letters and they are not mine or yours, but you learn them. I say you have the capacity to learn that all the world forms are made of these three gunas, including your body and all the bodies, but You are not made of these three gunas. Because You were first and foremost, before even the gunas appeared out of You. So they are your powers, but not You. You manifested your powers, not You.
An artist makes a drawing with pencil and paper. The whole drawing is not the artist, but people say that the drawing belongs to the artist. Why? Because the artist identifies with it, it is his choice, he accepts that it is his. In this way, the three gunas made the body and You, as the Sky, without gunas, came and began to dwell in it and said, “I am these three gunas.” And the three gunas are moving and moving; mind is moving and it never stays still. And, so, you move with it and feel uneasy, whereas your nature is not movement. So it is said, “Arjun, be free from these three gunas if you want to be at peace.” Peace will only be that Om Shaanti, Shaanti, Shaanti, no use of the senses, maun.
I began with these words: the first maun is no speech, the second maun is dropping the senses, the third maun is when you try forcibly to stop thinking. These three maun have not worked, but the inquiry continued.
When the inquiry was placed before Krishn, he said to Arjun, “You are using the knowledge of the three gunas and it is not working, it has confused you. And you are at a loss to understand what is the relevance of your existence on earth. So, nistraigunyo bhavarjun, be free from these three powers that have made the mind appear.”
Now, Arjun did not know how his thoughts came. So he asked again. He said, “Krishn, give me some more information. If I become nistraigunyo,or free from the gunas, what will happen?” Krishn said, “You will be nirdwandwo, free from struggle, the struggle of the mind thinking, thinking, thinking.” Arjun was convinced. He said, “That is a very good technique, I’ll do it.” Next, Krishn said, “You will always be established in that which is perfect maun like sushupti [deep sleep].” So Krishn said, “Aatmavaan: be by yourself, be in the Self, put your mind in the Self, let the mind be absorbed in the Self, let the thinking go back to the Source.” And then you will have that sushupti maun. I call it meditation. You love it. You spend time doing it.
Everything is just perfect. There is nothing that can be imperfect. You are born perfect. You are living in perfection. Your parents are perfect. Your world is perfect. Your coming is perfect. Your sharing is perfect. Your eating is perfect. Your drinking is perfect. You are sitting in a perfect state. And what is that Silence? It is perfect. It is called sushupti, sushupti maun.
This is the birthday of that Being, Krishn, the greatest Guru, the Jagat Guru, the Universal Guru, Heaven, the Sky. We don’t see him, but he is in every breath of yours, in every atom of your vision, in every auditory sense of yours and in every single pore of your existence. And in every single time and space, he is there.
As human beings, we have these little lights, little decoration and little flowers and a picture, and we think we know Krishn. Therefore, Guru is needed to tell you that if Krishn is within, how can you be weak, how can you be ignorant, how can you be a small, little, tiny person? You must get awakened. Know thyself. Know your true nature. The technique is before you, but you have to use it.
What is that technique? The fourth maun, sushupti maun; perfect silence of the kind that you are now knowing. This Space is Me, I, the Whole. I is not devoid of anything. I am the Whole. This will result in your intellect being purified. It will be enlightened, so it will be called the enlightened state. It will be realizing, so it will be called realization. But whose realization? That which humanity as a whole has forgotten, that each one has forgotten. What has he forgotten? He has forgotten his own true nature, Pure Awareness, Pure Existence.
At this time, you are fully aware of Existence, with closed eyes. You are listening to me in pin-drop silence. The rain has stopped. Your breath is nearly unmoving. Your eyes are closed. Your nerves are taking rest. And the Knower, Krishn, is taking birth in you. And you are becoming aware, the Watcher, the Knower. All the names we do not have to worry about. Who is Krishn, who is not. We do not need to worry about names, because these words were never there. Name was never there, forms were never there when I was there. And each I is the same I. So when I was there as Existence and out of Me, Existence, the whole Universe came, can it be other than Me? As when the web, the jaalaa, comes out of the spider, is it other than the spider?
So, I say you have the power to know, especially on this day when we are observing your own birthday—the birthday of Awareness. Awareness is dawning. It has dawned. And we will observe it with great pooja, great worship, great gongs, great instruments and songs. That is what we, the human beings, can do, so we do it.
The main thing is this: each one is that Freedom, each one is that Purity, each one is Timelessness, each one is Formlessness; and, as well, each one is form, each one is sound, each one has breath, each one has the atoms of existence, each one has hair, each one has a tongue and each one has lips. There is no division of any kind.
But due to lack of information you were suffering. And because you were suffering, I, too, was suffering. I still suffer when you are suffering. Whenever you are non-suffering, I am non-suffering. When you begin to suffer and have pain, I suffer and have pain. I feel not just for one, two or ten people, but the world as a whole. If they are ignorant, then I feel it and am very compassionate that, look, knowledge is there and they do not have it. They are dealing with their ignorance, and knowledge is there. Why do we need knowledge? Because without knowledge, you cannot have the sense of Perfection and Power.
Amaram Hum Madhuram Hum.
