Conscious Living (A Personal Philosophy of Life) - Prayer and Contemplation - Swami Rama

Part II

Why is japa done? Just to see that there is no space between thoughts. Your mind has three conditionings: time, space, and causation. Now see the space between these fingers. If there is no space between them, there is only one. If there is no space, there will be no time, there will be no causation. If you are constantly aware of the truth, there is no space between your thoughts. Many thoughts will come and go, but beneath there is only one consciousness. That is the easiest way to use the mind. Otherwise, the mind is such a small scale with which you are trying to measure the whole universe, it’s not possible. Now you can go beyond.

There is something beyond that which you consider sanity. You call it insanity, but there is definitely something in insanity. I was at the University of Allahabad, writing a book, doing research on a particular book which is considered to be the most difficult and terse book of Vedanta. You cannot pronounce its name, even after hearing it three times. It’s called Khandana-khandakhadyam. Very difficult name. I found out that the Vice Chancellor, Mr. Jha, considered to be a great, learned man of the country, had not written a single original line. He drew one line from here, one sentence from there, one paragraph from somewhere else and made a book. I was very sad. I went to him. I said, "Sir, may I ask you a question?" He said, "Yes?" He was sitting in a revolving chair, big chair. I said, "Why are you cheating people?" He said, "What’s the matter?" I said, "You have taken one paragraph from here, another paragraph from there, and you have become learned. This is theft. There is no originality in it." Do you know what he said? He said, "Son, originality is only found in an asylum." So I kept quiet.

Once, I wanted to know how people live in an asylum. I went to visit the asylum in Agra. The previous day, Mr. Nehru, the Prime Minister of India at that time, had also visited the same asylum. I found the people of the asylum in a world of their own, amazing! So I started talking to them. One said, "Who are you?" I said, "Just a swami." He said, "swami or slave?" And I wondered how sometimes wisdom comes from such people. I said, "I heard that Nehru came here yesterday." He said, "Oh anyone who comes over here calls himself Nehru." I said, "No, no, he really was Nehru." He replied, "Who cares who comes and who goes, we are here. That’s all." I asked them. "Do you believe in God?" Some said yes, some said no. You know what one of them said? He beckoned to me and said. "Hey, here, wait. Whether you believe in me or not, I’m still here." But one of them said something very remarkable. He was a lawyer and he was not at all crazy. His brothers had him committed because they were afraid of him, that he might create problems with division of property as they were very rich people. He said, "Do you do japa?" I said, ‘Yes." He said, "That’s not needed." I said, "Why?" He said, "God is your father, right?" I said, "Yes." "Ok," he said, "suppose you keep calling out to your father, ‘father, father, father, father, father,’ from morning till evening, what will your father think of you? He’ll be annoyed, fed up with you. He’ll think you are crazy. Do you think God is happy with your japa? Doing japa is of no use," he said. That gave me food for thought. "If you don’t listen to what your father says, and you don’t act according to his instructions, but keep saying all the time, `father, father, father, father, father, father,’ as you keep doing japa all the time, are you not crazy, swami?" I said, "I have to think about it. Thank you, thank you for your teachings."

© "HIHT News" (February 2006 issue to June 2006 issue), a Himalayan Institute Hospital Trust Publication, published by Himalayan Institute Hospital Trust, Swami Ram Nagar, Doiwala Post, Dehradun District 248140, Uttaranchal. Website: www.hihtindia.org. Part I of this article appeared in Splendour October 2006 issue. Reprinted with permission.

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