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SELF-REALIZATION

ITS MEANING AND METHOD

SRI SWAMI KRISHNANANDA

Sri Swami Sivananda

Founder of

The Divine Life Society

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So Says

Sri Swami Sivananda

Sri Swami Krishnananda

A DIVINE LIFE SOCIETY PUBLICATION

First Edition: 1987

Second Impression : 1994

(2,000 Copies)

World Wide Web (WWW) Reprint : 1997

WWW site: http://www.rsl.ukans.edu/~pkanagar/divine/

This WWW reprint is for free distribution

Published By

THE DIVINE LIFE SOCIETY

P.O. SHIVANANDANAGAR—249 192

Distt. Tehri-Garhwal, Uttar Pradesh,

Himalayas, India.

PREFACE

“Know thyself and be free”,—this perennial wisdom-teaching rings the eternal

message of the ageless quest of all creation-bound fields of self-awareness, whether these

be persons, things or whatever evolving species. The character of ‘self’ ingrained

everywhere and in everything explains loves as well as hatreds, war as well as peace,

statis as well as dynamis, life as well as death. But for the assertion of an inscrutable and

transcendent apperception and nonobjective consciousness playing hide and seek and

masquerading through all forms of existence, perpetually, the drama of the universe

would not have remained that eluding mystery which it purports to be and has been for

ever and ever. Here is an attempt to ponder over this most essential of all needs, this

pressing call from within and without and from all sides in the life of everyone.

The contents of this book form the subject of five lectures addressed to seekers in

the Ashram of The Divine Life Society, some years back, and it is hoped that these

suggestions will do some good to many a searching spirit.

25th April, 1994 Swami Krishnananda

SELF-REALIZATION ITS MEANING AND METHOD

The few words that I shall be trying to speak today are intended specially to be of some

benefit to those who are not accustomed to the usual Indian concept of the liberation of the Spirit,

call it Self-Realization, or God-Realization. While, generally, the citizens of India may be

considered to be fairly acquainted with a general notion of what liberation, or the aim of life, is,

though there may be some, even in India, whose idea about the supreme purpose of life may not

be perfect and perspicacious, yet it appears to me that there is a greater misconstruing of the very

meaning of the aim of life in certain countries like Europe and America, or what you call the

jurisdiction of Western culture. The word ‘Self-Realization’ is commonly used in spiritual

circles, and is often identified with what is known as God-Realization. In spite of this common

usage of what should be regarded as the principal motive behind every human endeavour, there is

likely to be the possibility of the intrusion of the human way of thinking even in regard to what is

totally transcendent to human reaches. It is an inveterate involvement in the human vision of

things that should be regarded as responsible for reading human meaning even in what you may

consider as God-Almighty.

Now, the human way of thinking has certain specific characteristics: Firstly, it is involved

in the concept of spatial extension and distance, and the notion of temporal succession, process

and movement, activity and effort, work and achievement of the result or fruit of work. There is

no other way in which the human mind can normally think. But to stretch this logic of what one

may call the three-dimensional way of thinking, thinking in terms of distance and spatial

difference, thinking in terms of temporal process or a terminus calculated by the movement of

time, much worse, to think always in terms of human needs only, and not to pay any attention to

the possibility of there being things in the world other than human,-may be more important than

human,-should be a matter of concern for everyone.

What on earth does anyone mean by Self-Realization? What do you mean by God-

Realization? We, with all the stretches of our intelligent imagination, cannot but be human. The

human foibles and weaknesses are not merely confined to what we call desires and aversions,

likes and dislikes, prejudice, passion and anger. These are, no doubt, weaknesses, but there are

more subtle weaknesses which pass for the wisdom of life. There are more dangerous troubles to

life in the world than the usually well-known wickednesses which are listed in our catalogues and

available in the notification given to us through the scriptures. But the more dangerous and

surreptitious intrusions of invisible forms of weakness in human thought are to be a greater

matter for our concern than merely an effort to get rid of likes, dislikes, ego, prejudice, etc.,

which are all publicly known. There are difficulties which are not so well known, and cannot so

easily be known also, because these weaknesses are the very constituents of the individuality of

man. Man is made up of these weaknesses only, and, therefore, he has no avenue to discover the

existence of these weaknesses. The components of human thought are themselves involved in

these fundamental weaknesses and, therefore, human thought cannot be permitted entry for any

investigation into these matters which concern its own makeup, the very building bricks of its

existence itself. These matters are serious in the light of the fact that they are the final barriers,

the checkposts, the chungis, which will put to set our hard-earned advantages through the

austerities and the Sadhanas we perform to the extent of our knowledge and capacity.

SELF-REALIZATION ITS MEANING AND METHOD

The concept of Self-Realization can stir up divine visions and a highly balanced outlook

of life, a sober approach to every event and factor in life, a policy of impersonality in regard to

any kind of encounter in the world. Yes, this is fine, and this can be there, and this is sometimes

there. But there can also be something else. John Bunyan in his beautiful work, “The Pilgrim’s

Progress,” says in a fine passage that even when you are sure that you are at the gate of heaven

itself, you are likely to step into a pit there which can lead to hell at the very gate to heaven. This

pit to hell is nothing but the natural incapacity to overcome the human interpretation of the nature

of God’s existence. And what is this human interpretation? That God also is positioned in this

universe, something like a large individual, though He may be as large as this universe itself

Nevertheless, He is there, somewhere, as we are also here. Now, it is not true that God is

somewhere sitting, though we may not be able to understand why it should be so. That we

cannot escape the notion of God being somewhere sitting in some position, whatever be the

extent of His personality, is related to our spatial way of thinking. God may be in heaven, in

Brahmaloka, He may be in the highest possible universality and comprehensiveness of being,

yet, He is ‘somewhere.’ The is-ness of God ‘somewhere’ creates a subtle difference between the

location in which we are and the location to which we attach God. This notwithstanding the fact

that we are honest in conceding an all-encompassing universality to God’s existence. Our

honesty is one hundred per cent, and we agree that God is universal, is everywhere, and,

therefore, He is everything, and at all times. But, still, I am also here conceiving this universality

of God, and that the permission granted to God’s universality will not permit our existence does

not occur to our minds. This is a fright to many of even the philosophers, both in the East and

the West. I had a discussion with some brilliant professors of philosophy from America, well-

known teachers of metaphysics, who have written good histories of philosophy. And one of the

thinkers whom I had the occasion to meet here was a professor of philosophy from the Cornel

University. He mentioned to me during the course of our discussion, “What good is there in such

liberation? What point is there in the attainment of God if it means the cessation of the very

existence of the seeker of God himself? Who is benefiting? The one who seeks benefit out of

God’s experience, or God-experience, you say, will not be there. If the seeker of God is not to be

there, who is seeking God?” This is a general difficulty with Western thinking, and it persists

even today, and it cannot but persist as long as man is man. Some theologians in the East also

have this difficulty.

Here is a point which may be relevant to earnest Sadhakas and seekers who come

especially from Western countries, not necessarily professors from universities. There are

sincere souls coming from the West, and they are sincere in their search for the finality of God’s

Being, the end of human endeavour. But, the spatio-temporal vision of things does not easily

take leave, so that there can even be a hard core of conviction within these sincere souls that

there is some onerous duty that they have to perform even after entry into the bosom of God.

The entry into the universality of God which we call liberation is only a permit that is granted to

man for working greater wonders in this world, miracles, perhaps even to the extent of larger

services to the human brethren. Again, we are in the midst of human brethren only. We rose

from them and we have come back to them after having dipped ourselves in the light and ocean

of God’s Being. This is not merely a philosophical mistake or a metaphysical handicap, it may

end in a breakdown of the human personality which is in search of God. These subtle empirical

SELF-REALIZATION ITS MEANING AND METHOD

intrusions into the final goal of life may, of course, not lead to that realization, but may do

something worse, from which it may be good for everyone of us to guard ourselves, namely, a

breakdown of the whole nervous system and a disappointment with life itself, a disgust with

existence in this world, and a sense of negation of any meaning in life. There have been honest

souls who have finally found that life has no meaning, that it is a total idiocy. “It brings nothing,

it can give nothing, and all these pursuits are a pursuit of the will-o’-the wisp, a phantasmagoria,

an illusion, a fear-born delusion risen like a devil in the mind of man, a brain-washed education

which has ruined my life.” With these notions the sincere seeker may leave this world because of

an erroneous notion about God’s nature, the purpose behind the very reason in the search for

God, and what actually could happen to one in God-Realization.

It is difficult to believe that many of us have a clear notion as to what will happen if God-

Realization is to be our blessing. What will happen to us? You may scratch your head up to the

core of your cerebrum, but you will not find an easy answer to this terrible question: What will

happen to me after I attain God? You will have a hundred answers from a thousand people, all

confusing and contradicting one another, leaving you at sea finally and landing you nowhere.

This is a predicament we may escape if we have a competent guide. These days we feel that

libraries are our Gurus, and travelling also brings experience. Well, this may be true in some

percentage, but this is not a final support. Because, whatever be the extent of your study through

books and encounter with personages in the various cultures of the world through your itineraries

or tours,-though they may be cultural tours,-you will find that you are the interpreter of the books

and you will see in these books only what you want to see, and you will not see there what you

do not want to see. You go to these libraries and you go on tours round Ashramas and

universities with some spectacles which you have manufactured for yourselves. These spectacles

will determine the way of your vision of things and these mental glasses will also decide what

you will read in these books. You will read only what is capable of being received by your mind

through these specs that you have put on, and nothing else will come to you because you have

become your own judge, you have become your own teacher, you have agreed to be your own

Guru, finally, and many a young man feels that his judgment can be a final judgment. “What is

wrong with them? I do not believe that the suggestions given to me should be wholly accepted. I

feel and think and argue in this way and these ways of my thinking and arguing seem to be my

ways.” So, a situation has arisen in the modem educated mind, where it considers itself as its own

sole support, guide, friend, philosopher, and no other suggestion is acceptable. And even if any

suggestion is given, instruction is imparted or knowledge is communicated, it will be received,

through these specs, these mental glasses which condition everything that is communicated in

any way. They will be sifted according to the idiosyncrasies, the background of education and

the social circumstances of the person.

Self-Realization is not an easy thing to achieve, because the notion of the Self is a barrier

and a handicap. What do you mean by the Self when you speak of Self-Realization? Where is

this Self situated? “It is within me.” This is a usual glib answer available for any person. “I seek

to know my own Self.” And why do I seek to know my own Self? Because I want to live in

peace. What do you mean by peace? No answer can be given. Here, again, we are in a state of

confusion. Why do you want Self-Realization? To know my own Self. Why do you want to

know your own Self? To be in a state of balance in my mind and outlook. What for is this

SELF-REALIZATION ITS MEANING AND METHOD

effort? To be peaceful. What is peace? That cannot be answered. We do not know what this

peace means, about which people talk so much and which is the theme of the various rostrums in

the parliaments of cultural discussion the world over, which are taking place from Peru to China!

But, what is this Self? While you may say, ‘it is within me’, and this may appear to satisfy the

person who has put this question, you will be sure that it does not satisfy even your own selves.

There is no use merely saying ‘the Self is within me and that is my God’. We have a curious

notion of Self and God, indeed. It is within you! When you say, ‘the Self is within me’, what do

you mean by this ‘me’? What is this ‘me’ or the ‘I’? Again, the same question arises. Here,

again, we are bodily shackled. We are men and women, we are human, and we cannot be

anything else. So this ‘within’ in which the Self seems to be situated is the ‘within’ ‘this body’.

You have confined the notion of yourself to your bodily existence finally, though your intention

is to break through the barriers of bodily consciousness in search for the Self. The thief has

subtly entered through the back door, while you are keeping police and army at the front door to

prevent an entry of the dacoits. They have come through the back door and they have done their

work, because the Self which is supposed to be the means to break through the barriers of bodily

consciousness has confined itself to the body only, again, for, when the Self is within, it cannot

be but within the body. If it is not within the body, within what is it, when you say that it is

within? Here is a difficulty before you. Many of the books will not answer this pose. If God is

not within, where else is God? And if you say that He is within, within what? Within the body?

You are caught again by the very answer that you are giving, which is supposed to be the solution

to your problems.

There is also another difficulty that you may have to face. What will you do after Self-

Realization takes place? You may tell me, How can this question arise? It certainly arises and it

cannot be escaped by most people because we are bound to the action-ridden world. The world

is nothing but a field of activity. We do, and do, and do, and work, and work, and we have

nothing else of meaning in life except action, doing something, working. So, naturally, the

greatest meaning of life being working, doing, acting and moving towards achievement of

something, that being the final meaning, that meaning cannot be abrogated even in what we may

call God-Realization. A heightened form of work may be the advantage we gain after God-

Realization! The Realization of the Self or the Realization of God will give me greater strength

to work more in this world than I am capable of at present. I may be able to do a greater service

to the people than at present. I may live a longer life. I may not die at all after the blessing of

God is received. This individual immortality sanctioned to me by the achievement of the Self or

the attainment of God will give me such suzerainty over the world that I shall be the master of all

things and I shall be a wonder-worker.

Why should not these difficulties present themselves before us? And many of us may

have a subtle reason for justifying these arguments. What will I do after the attainment of God?

That there is nothing to do after the attainment of God will either make the person go crazy or

just give up the pursuit itself, because if nothing is going to be done and nothing is going to

happen to me after the attainment of God, it will be a vegetating condition of silent inactivity, a

meaningless rotting in a totally void and valueless outcome. These are dangers that are at the

back of the human mind. The Self-Realization that we are speaking of is inconceivable to the

human mind, because most of the knowledge that we have is book-born, lecture-born and

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