A Master Message of the Ancient Rishis : Thinking the Cosmic Totality -1. Swami Krishnananda.
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Tuesday, February 22, 2022. 20:00.
(Spoken on April 25, 1972 during night satsang on Swamiji's 50th birthday.)
Post-1.
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Our heartfelt gratitude goes to the Supreme Father of the universe, whose incomparable compassion keeps us alive and breathing, makes our existence possible, and Who as the great Director of the drama of creation operates every activity, every effort, and every thought and feeling in all this mighty cosmos. May our silent obeisance be at His feet which are everywhere as the highest purifiers and the only solace of the restless souls in this world. May God's grace be upon us all.
Our efforts in life assume a meaning only when they are based on honesty of purpose. And what is honesty? It is a simple obedience to the law of our own being. To be respectful to the rule that governs and controls our own selves is to be honest in one's life. When we are disobedient to our own selves, we are dishonest, so honesty comes before us with a new significance. It is not so much regard for the welfare of others, as it is usually defined to be, on account of which definition it has become so difficult to practise. It is, rather, obeisance to our own principle existence. When we are not honest, we violate our own selves, tear ourselves into pieces psychologically, intellectually, spiritually. We remain as a house divided against itself, as it were. What could be worse for man than to violate his own laws and to be disobedient to himself? Honesty is the highest policy, as you must have heard. It is not merely a policy; it is the law of righteousness. It is the dharma that rules all creation. Life has significance when it is rooted in the law of Being.
Now, this Being is something enigmatic for the human intellect to grasp. Where is this Being, to whose law we have to bow our head? When this mystery behind the practice and the fulfilment of law becomes clear to our eyes and our minds, our life itself becomes fulfilled. Inasmuch as we do not know the very background and presupposition of this principle, mostly we appear to be failures in our life. A person who cheats himself or herself cannot be expected to achieve success in any walk of life. It is impossible for us to cheat others. We first cheat ourselves; then it manifests itself outside by an extension of its force. We cannot do violence to others unless we do violence first to our own selves. As they say, charity begins at home. Dishonesty and violence also begin at home. We fall first, and then make others fall. We cannot hurl another person into the pit unless we ourselves have fallen into the pit. This is a miraculous principle which rules inexorably, inviolably all creation, visible and invisible, whether it is operating in organic life or in so-called inorganic matter.
This Being, whose law is righteousness and honesty, is to be the guiding principle of our life. Where is this Being? Kṣetrajñaṁ cāpi māṁ viddhi sarvakṣetreṣu (Gita 13.2): This root of the Being of individuals, of personalities, of things in the world, is sometimes designated as the kshetrajna in us. Where is this kshetrajna, the regulator of the kshetra, the operator of this body, the vitality behind all forms in creation? It is sarvakshetresu, in all vehicles of existence. It is the meaning and the very substance of yourself, myself, and all things. Surprisingly enough, it is the law of our own being, and impliedly, it is the law of the being of everyone everywhere, merely because of the fact that our being is also the being of everyone else. When it is our kshetrajna, it is also the kshetrajna of all other kshetras – sarvakshetresu. Kshetrajnam mam viddhi. This is something which is not visible to our eyes or palpable to our senses, but the most essential of all essentials in our life.
This is also to be good in oneself. To be honest is, at the same time, to be good because goodness is only an outer temporal expression of, once again, the law of this divinity within us. When we are honest to ourselves, we are, therefore, honest to everyone automatically. But when we regard the kshetrajna in us as different from the kshetrajna in other persons and things, we begin to trade with other people, carry on a commercial activity with other forms of life, and try to make profit out of them. We want to amass capital out of other persons and other things in the world. This is impossible.
Life is such, the world is constituted in such a manner, creation is of such a character that we cannot make capital out of any other person or thing in this world. We cannot profit in the sense of gaining over the losses of other people in the world. This is absolutely impossible on the very face of it, and anyone who tries to manipulate his activities in such a manner as to violate this essential law of life shall be the loser first, while he imagines that others shall be losers for his own profit or gain.
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