THE PURPOSE OF LIFE

INTERVIEW WITH GOPI KRISHNA
BY CLAES NOBEL
TALK ABOUT
THE PURPOSE OF LIFE

It is a privilege to be here and to meet you in person. This is a particularly beautiful setting, with the mountains and the wonderful lake in front of us. It must give a person much inspiration to live in such beauty and solitude as this.

It is a strange coincidence, because it is in this type of surroundings that the ancient sages of India spoke to the seekers after truth. The entire philosophy of the Upanishads is based on the teachings delivered by the sages, in hermitages located on hills, on the banks of rivers, or on the banks of lakes where nature bloomed in all its glory and beauty.

Solitude and nature are absolutely necessary for the proper development of a human being.

It is an admixture of natural life, lived in solitude, amid beautiful surroundings of nature and what we call an arboreal life, which is absolutely necessary for the poise and harmony of the human mind. Otherwise, it becomes too much distracted, and that distraction is fatal for its evolution towards a higher dimension of consciousness.

The blunder made by us at present is to put the human mind in surroundings among machines, speeding cars, and airplanes, which do not allow it to have that repose and calm environment where it can grow in the right direction.

Could you tell me a little about this particular area? I understand that you were born in Kashmir and have been living here for most of your life.

I was born in a village about 21 miles from Srinagar. This area is considered to be one of the most beautiful and most productive in Kashmir. It is lavish with fruits and produces an abundance of corn. It is said that some of the greatest philosophers that Kashmir has produced have been residing in this area, such as Abhinava Gupta.

The spring which supplies water to our buildings and garden, overlooking Dal Lake, is known as the Gupta Tirth, the Hidden Spring, and it is said that some of those sages lived here, close to the spring, and at other places on this slope.

And these mountains? Are we in the Himalayas?

Yes, they are the foothills of the Himalayas, and on the other side of this mountain a stream is flowing which comes from a lake about 13,000 feet above sea level. It carries the water to a place about six miles from here, where an artificial lake has been built by the government. The lake supplies drinking water to the entire city of Srinagar, about 10 miles away. It is very beautiful water, and this valley, on the other side of the building, is a reserve where wild animals are allowed to live.

I am very interested in wild animals and have been working with various environmental and ecological organizations to protect them. What kind of animals do you have in these mountains?

Jackals, wolves, and even some variety of tiger. Also bears in large numbers, and they sometimes come into our garden.

I would like to say that what particularly brought me here to visit with you is my very strong concern over matters related to peace. Today it seems as if we are on the brink of another world war. A third world war could confront mankind, and bring out the most destructive weapons we have in our arsenals, the nuclear missiles. Among many of the books you have written is The Shape of Events to Come, which I carried with me from the States. It is a mind-boggling book, and I would like to hear about it from you. What is the message you are trying to get out to the world?

In this book, I am in particular trying to draw the attention of the world to a very important fact that at the present moment our scientists, our educators, leaders, and politicians are only aware of natural laws, and even those are not known completely or perfectly. In addition to material laws, there are also spiritual or psychic laws in the universe. We have absolutely no awareness of these laws. Time and again, a glimpse of these laws has been given to mankind by the great prophets and Messiahs who appeared in different parts of the world. We have rejected their teachings as pure myth or superstition. But actually those teachings contain germs of truth that are essential for the safety and survival of the race.

The tragedy is that we have rejected the evidence of religion or of the teachings of great sages about the spiritual world and the soul which dwells in the human body. Since spirit, mind or soul is not perceptible to any of our senses, or to any of our scientific instruments, we presume that they have no independent existence apart from the body or the organic organ, the brain, and therefore we need not worry about what happens to them. But actually they do have an independent existence. They have a universe of their own, and they have profound influences on all that we do, on all that we think, on all that we create.

But this influence is conditioned by certain laws which are totally a sealed book to us. These laws are operating at present and driving mankind to a catastrophic war to end the present order, which is against the evolution of the brain.

What laws are you referring to now?

I am referring to the first law, the Law of Evolution. This law of evolution has been referred to by every prophet; by the founder of every great faith. They have not called it a law. They called it a Path, a way, a road. Christ has called it a Path, Buddha has called it a Path, Mohammed has called it a Path, the Bhagavad Gita calls it a Path. All of them call it a Path, the road that can lead mankind to salvation and beatitude. This Path is a law. This is what I am emphasizing with all the force at my command. And I hope and pray that science and our intellectuals would come to the same conclusion after conducting scientific experiments, before the catastrophe occurs, rather than after.

When you say catastrophe, to what are you referring?

Nature, we find, is relentless in her programs and schedules. She is also relentless in enforcing her laws. We know that the moment we digress from some of the biological laws ruling our life, we are punished in some way. We have a disease, we have a weakness, or we die, or something happens to us, if we violate the laws pertaining to our body.

The same thing happens when we violate the laws pertaining to our mind, but we never recognize this. We are now violating this Law of Evolution, which the prophets have called the Path, very seriously. The alternatives are either mankind will degenerate, or its mind will become disoriented, as is actually happening at the moment, or it will have to revert to a lifestyle and a social system which is more in harmony with this Path.

You say in The Shape of Events to Come that it is most likely we will have a nuclear war, and you also say that we must try to avoid it no matter what the cost. My question is this: Are we ruled by predestination or by free will?

We are ruled by both predestination and also by free will.

And the predestination in this case, you feel that it will escalate to some kind of a confrontation between different ideologies? It seems as if you are saying that this is a growing process that man is going through; that we have been going through history continually plagued by wars.

The indications are that there will be a nuclear war. But it could be averted if mankind were to obey the law which it is violating at present.

What law are we violating?

To repeat, it is the Law of Evolution, the Path referred to in every great faith of mankind, the Path of Christ, the Path of Mohammed, the Path of Buddha, the Path described in the Bhagavad Gita. As I have said, the Path described in every great scripture of the world.

But if it has been described in all the leading religions, why is man so foolish as to disobey those findings, and why are we not following the prescribed path?

There is a very valid reason for it. The scientists of the 18th century, and even before, expressed views which are mostly skeptical. They denied the existence of God, immortality of the soul and the hereafter. The result is that at the present moment the intelligent mind is wavering between the precepts of religion and the concepts of science.

This has been a great tragedy. In fact, it is this premature expression of skeptical views that led Karl Marx to formulate his entirely materialistic theories. These premature views have divided mankind into two blocs; one of them who believe in God and the other who deny God.

When you say the two blocs, are you referring to the Communistic bloc, which denies religious freedom, and the Western Capitalistic bloc?

Yes. It has been a real tragedy that Western scientists never studied other religions, such as the Indian religion or the ancient tradition of Egypt. They only concentrated their attention on Christianity. Even after concentrating their attention on that one particular religion, and pointing out certain anomalies, they still could have studied the phenomena in an objective way instead of rejecting the whole finding of religion altogether.

If they had done it, if they had studied the occult literature of the world just as they studied alchemy and astrology, and the ancient sciences of medicine and the like, and then out of the amorphous mass crystallized certain laws and facts, then they would have come to the conclusion that there is a law to which all these prophets were referring. And that is a spiritual law which relates to the evolution of the human mind, and also to the emancipation of the human soul and its rising to higher dimensions of existence.

You speak with such assurance. Having read a number of your books, I know that you have had a great personal enlightenment. Thanks to this enlightenment, your illumination as you also call it, you are in a position where you can indeed look into the future and discern events to come. Could you tell me when this happened, and what kind of experience it was?

I had an incredible experience in my 34th year. And from that experience started a process of transformation in my body which continues to this day. This transformation led me to a state of consciousness which I had never experienced before. It is a strange experience. In the normal human being, one's personality is a small flame of consciousness or awareness. And seen from that small flame, the world appears to be a gigantic expanse of stars, planets, oceans, mountains, deserts and plains. But when this transformation of consciousness occurs, the whole picture is reversed. It is now the consciousness which becomes an ocean. It is now the consciousness which surpasses these suns, planets, mountains, oceans, plains and deserts. It is now consciousness that becomes the fundamental reality of the universe. And all that we see now, with our sensory equipment, is like an image projected on it.

Consciousness now appears to be the basic reality, to be the universe in fact. And what we see, the material manifestations of the universe, are but projections of this very consciousness. We can say they are like shadows, phantoms, like a mirage floating on it.

This consciousness that developed in you at the age of 34 became a super-consciousness, a thing which happens very seldom to people. Perhaps in our times it has happened to only a few people. Is there any way that this can be triggered in others by some sort of activity?

I believe so. I believe that this transformation is not a haphazard affair. We have in us a mechanism implanted in the human system by nature. This mechanism rules the cerebrospinal system in our bodies. Once it is aroused to activity, the cerebrospinal system works in a certain predetermined direction. A new form of energy flows in the body, and a new form of consciousness develops in the brain.

For instance, in my case, I always dwell in a world of light. There is light in my interior, there is light on the exterior for me, also. Everything I see is bathed in a luster. Whenever I turn my attention inward and close my eyes, I am bathed in light. In dreams also I am always walking, running and moving in ethereal spaces filled with luster. I now live in the same world which has been experienced by mystics of all ages and climes, a world of light, of unutterable happiness and of intellectual illumination. It is in this state of consciousness that I get these hints and visions and directions, precognitions and awareness of future events, to tell me that this is the path chalked out for mankind, and that she has digressed from this path, with the result that her evolution and very existence is threatened.

You say that different people have different receptivity in these matters, or intelligent energies that are in the cosmic universe, that we are indeed like receivers, and that some individuals are more able to receive them than others. We know from the various religions that anything having to do with creation stems from thought. And if there is a universal creative thought, we see the manifestations in plants, trees, and in the acts that man performs.

What you are also saying is that this is such an enormous, powerful instrument, this new consciousness in yourself, but that we have failed to use it properly in recent centuries due to the fact that mankind has been too actively involved in the pursuit of scientific knowledge. We have therefore forgotten the knowledge as to how to communicate with cosmic intelligence. Is that correct?

You are very right. Some minds are more responsive and more receptive to this cosmic reservoir of intelligence than others, for instance, geniuses. It is well known, and it is admitted by geniuses themselves that they receive whole chapters, whole books, whole ideas, whole poems, just as if somebody else is feeding them with the material.

So when a genius works, it is not something that his mind does by itself but the ideas or thoughts come to him, that he is the instrument of the creative process?

Certainly, when it comes to the original things. Now, it is not that the genius does not make any effort. The effort is made, but his brain is so constituted that it has easier access to this reservoir of eternal knowledge than others do. Similarly, we have the psychics, prophets, clairvoyants, prodigies, great artists and the great musicians. They all receive new ideas, new flashes, new music, and new art from this intelligent source, which is behind the human mind. We are making a grave mistake in supposing that consciousness or the mind is the product of our brain. That is what is at the root of the present disaster. Consciousness or mind is an energy by itself. It is an independently existing universe. It is a self-sustaining ocean from which a drop filters into our mind. Our mind, our neurons, our nervous system, is but a computer. They are just the parts of a computer worked by this energy. The moment we come to realize this fact we can begin to make experiments to prove it. That is what I mean when I say that we must have experimental centers where we can do research on the evolutionary mechanism that is implanted in every human being. In the ancient India scriptures, this mechanism is often referred to as Kundalini.

Now you've brought in a new word.

Well, Kundalini, in the Indian tradition, means a reservoir of psychic power in the human body which can be aroused to activity by certain mental or spiritual disciplines, as for instance, Yoga. Kundalini is said to be the basis for illumination, genius, miraculous power, and for all extraordinary faculties and possibilities latent in the human mind.

I assume that Kundalini is a very old doctrine, not something that has surfaced just at this time.

It is as old as pre-dynastic Egypt. That means it was known more than 5,000 years before the birth of Christ.

And you say it has been recorded in the ancient scriptures?

Hundreds and thousands of books mention it. It is recorded in Chinese books, the Egyptian hieroglyphics, in the Indian Tantras and Shakti Shastras. There are thousands of books on Kundalini in India, dating from prehistoric times.

And it is a biological force in all human beings? Is that what you are referring to in your book, The Biological Basis of Religion and Genius?

Yes. But, unfortunately, science has no awareness of this Power Center, which is in fact the evolutionary mechanism. Some scientists believe that evolution has occurred through random mutations, which is disputed very hotly by others. But the fact is that there is a biological mechanism in every human being, and this mechanism is known as Kundalini. It can be accelerated through the discipline of Yoga or through other religious exercises. And when it is accelerated, one can, in one life, attain to the same state of expanded consciousness as would otherwise be attained in many incarnations.

This is what you did as a young man; you were actively pursuing this and you awakened this evolutionary mechanism?

It aroused not only because of my efforts but first, probably, because my nervous system and brain were mature for this awakening. I had it through heredity in my own system.

Wouldn't this be of great importance if we could have decision-makers and world leaders become exposed to this subject, this doctrine, so that they could understand more about how the mind operates and how everything fits together?

It is of the utmost importance. If we study Plato deeply, especially his Republic, he is referring to this type of man as the philosopher who should be the highest ruler in the state. It is this type of man who is discussed in the Upanishads, the man who is illuminated, who has risen above normal temptations. He alone should be entrusted with the responsibilities of rulership.

And if this could be done, then maybe we would achieve peace, harmony and happiness in the world.

It has to be done. It is not only a question that it could be done. We have now gained control over the most terrible power in the universe, the power of the atom. Unless mankind has sober, patient, selfless human beings at the top in every sphere of activity and thought, to control and moderate the passions and ambitions in others, there is no possibility of human survival in the next fifty or hundred years.

Isn't it strange that mankind has been ignoring, or unaware of this profound knowledge instead of using it to great advantage and benefit? Why are we not using it?

Mr. Nobel, it is a matter of great pain for me. For the past thousands of years, in Grecian times, among the Romans, Egyptians, Indians, Chinese, everywhere, the greatest thinkers have been believers in the Power ruling the universe. They have written profound systems of philosophy, especially in India. They are the most profound systems even today. But all of a sudden scientists appeared in the 18th and 19th centuries, saying that this whole mass of knowledge was a myth and superstition, and they made those assertions without ever experimenting on it.

So what do we need to do now, today, in order to correct this mistake or reverse the trend?

As you say, we have to reverse the trend. We have to make a thorough study of the religious scriptures of the world.

On a scientific level?

Yes, on a scientific level. We have to see the points of resemblance. We have to see where they refer to the occult disciplines. We have to see what is the state of illumination, what has been the experience of the great mystics. We have to gather all this data, and then we have to make experiments on volunteer subjects for the arousal of this power in them. I am as sure as that the sun is shining before me that this will be proved and established within the next twenty years, provided we were to make the right efforts for this purpose.

Gopi Krishna, how do you distinguish between the false prophet, which we know existed even in Biblical times and continues to exist today, and the genuine prophet?

The genuine prophet does not normally run after disciples; is not ostentatious. He is spontaneous. He is humble. He is compassionate, and he has certain faculties, certain visions of, if I may say, a newly developed inner eye by which he can discern things and solve problems which it is not possible for a normal man to do.

The first sign of an illuminated personality is that there is a spontaneous flow of wisdom. This is known as vaikhari in India. That wisdom generally deals with the spiritual side of man. It must be original. It must be correct. And it must be born within himself without the aid of external reading or other things. You will find that in the case of all great mystics whatever has been given out has usually been in verse or in a very beautiful form of prose. The illuminated mind has its own language, its own expression. The illuminated mind will never exaggerate, it will only give out the truth.

There are many ways by which we can distinguish a true prophet from a false one. In India one of the methods was that only those who could write original commentaries on what is known as parasthan atray, that is, the Upanishads, the Yoga Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita, should be acclaimed as those having attained to higher consciousness. It is not an easy task to write an original commentary on either the Bhagavad Gita or the Upanishads, because one who does so must have attained to the same realms of consciousness as described in those books.

We have had illuminated human beings in India who were wonders from the age of 8 or 10, Guru Nanak, Jnaneshwar and Shankaracharya. Shankaracharya passed away at the age of 31 after leaving a prodigious amount of philosophical and religious thought. Jnaneswar, who passed away at the age of 22, wrote a commentary on the Bhagavad Gita at the age of 16. It is a masterpiece and perhaps unparalleled in recent literature on the subject. Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikhs, was a spiritual prodigy from the age of 8.

It is not difficult to distinguish a spiritual prodigy or a spiritual genius, just as it is not difficult to distinguish a secular genius in other branches of knowledge. But with the investigation that I have in mind, it may become possible to find physiological evidence also, evidence in the blood, the cerebrospinal system, in the brain, even in the organs, the tissues, that show differences between an illuminated human being and an average person.

This scientific evaluation, is it something that has been done before or would it be something new?

It will be entirely new. I believe that science is now in a position to be able to notice the differences and also the effect of the transformative processes that occur in the body on the arousal of this evolutionary power.

Something that surprises me is that you write such beautiful verse, or lyrics, in English when it is not your native language. Is that by inspiration, something that just flows?

Yes, it just comes. What I am trying to express needs a deep study, because it is a very a profound subject. I must tell you, Mr. Nobel, without arrogating any importance to myself, in a humble way, just as a statement of fact, that I am a living witness to the truth of religion. I am a specimen of the class which has been known as mystics. I am a living model of transformed consciousness, a testimony to the correctness of the esoteric doctrines of the world, embodying in myself what has been said by the great religious teachers of the past, of whom recent examples in India have been Ramakrishna and Ramana Maharshi . It is a rare class. We can at once distinguish the genuine from the false. It is a matter of great pain for me to see the skeptical attitude of modern scientists about a phenomenon that has been the most important in history in changing the direction of human thought.

Buddha, Shankaracharya, Mohammed, Socrates, Zoroaster, Guru Nanak, all of these great leaders, who brought out radical changes in the thinking of mankind, belonged to this class. So it is not difficult to distinguish a genuine prophet, mystic or enlightened being from the false. But still there can also be psychological, intellectual and physiological tests by which this distinction can be easily made.

Earlier in our conversation you said that this wonderful gift that you are endowed with is something that can come to every person in lesser or greater degree if they are properly trained and motivated. Today we are annually spending some $450 billion on armaments, and I can well remember The Manhattan Project, which produced the first atom bomb, and at a tremendously high price.

If we could just invest a small amount of these funds, which are meant for death, towards research for life, towards spirituality and enlightenment, and to develop super-consciousness, wouldn't it be of great benefit to all of mankind? The research could proceed hand-in-hand with science.

The very fact that we are spending $450 billion on armaments and armies, that is on machines meant for destruction, is clear evidence for what I am saying, that the human mind has deviated from the right path. Millions are dying of starvation, millions become blind because they do not have the necessary vitamins, millions live on only one meal a day, and millions lack medicines, lack education, and live without shelter. Do you think that a sane species or a sane nation or a sane community should spend billions on weapons of mass destruction, or on sending rockets into space, when humanity needs every penny of these funds to survive?

Frankly, I cannot understand it, either.

That, my friend, is the reason why a devastating war is coming. We have lost faith in Heaven. We have lost the idea that every moment we are watched by the eyes of God.

Again, I must ask, how have we gone wrong?

We have gone wrong by believing that religion is but an individual concern, that religion is a hobby of the individual and that it has no place in government administration, or politics, science, in our projects, or in our planning for mankind.

But it used to be in America and Japan and Europe, that the state and religion worked together and misused their powers. That's why politics and religion were separated.

That is true. But we have to understand that at no time was proper study or research directed on religion. The religious leaders were given a free hand, and naturally they slowly became too fond of temporal power, even ecclesiastical power and the easements that were provided for that, rather than following in the footsteps of the founders of the faith.

This is also what has happened to science. Scientists have become dogmatic, and now they also have their vested interests. That love for science and scientific discoveries, that selfless service, is very rare today. So religion, since it became dogmatic and obsessive, needed a purging; it needed a cleansing process, just as science needs today, as every human institution needs after a time.

Even the Indian institutions needed it in their own time before they degenerated. But that was never done. On the other hand, it was just pushed aside, and our entire economy, or political and social systems, were just considered on a secular basis, on a basis where religion has no say. It was just treated as an individual concern. But religion is dealing with universal laws.

In a few words, science deals with material laws, religion deals with the laws of the spirit. We have become one-sided. We have gone too far into the material side and too far away from the spiritual side. The result is that there is a lopsided development of our intellect. It has become a dry intellect, without the sobering and harmonizing influence of religion.

Do you think that our religions will accept this idea? Will they allow science to work hand in hand with religion to carry out the kind of evolutionary or spiritual research you are calling for?

There is no question of their not accepting, or not believing in, what I say. They should not accept a single word of what I am writing as truth but leave it open to experimentation. Just make the experiments on the evolutionary mechanism, Kundalini, which is a historical fact. It is a hidden doctrine mentioned in all the esoteric systems of the past. I say they should make experiments on it in a certain way. If they succeed, if they find that I am right, then give the widest possible publicity to it.

What I have said in my writings is that no great illuminated sage had a conversation with God or communion with God. He reached only a higher dimension of consciousness. Man is destined for that same higher dimension of consciousness. There is a special psychosomatic mechanism in his body which Nature has provided for him to accelerate and rise higher and higher into this higher dimension. The prophets, illuminated sages, geniuses, the inspired poets, and the people with miraculous or psychic gifts, have all been the products of this psychosomatic mechanism, which is slowly transforming the human brain.

I say that we can achieve this transformation in one life. When these things are proved, then all the hidden secrets of religion will stand revealed, why Christ was inspired, why Mohammed was inspired, why Guru Nanak was inspired, why they had miraculous powers. And such eloquence that they could fascinate and convert everyone who came into their influence or their orbit. It is because of this power center. Once you establish it, at once there will be harmony in all the religions, because the Divine Source of revelation will then be known.

In our day and age, science and technology have become our God. Having science verify the truths of religion, therefore, seems like a valid goal.

Please understand me clearly, Mr. Nobel. I would repeat this with my last breath. The source of revelation, inspiration, genius, psychic powers lies in us. This source can become active with certain disciplines. Normally it is dormant and idle. We don't use it, but with certain experiments, this source, this fountainhead of all spiritual knowledge and powers, can become active. And it did become active in all the great prophets, sages and geniuses of the past.

The research that I am asking for will place in the hands of science the secret of genius, the secret of that Source from which science was born, from which philosophy, literature, genius, music, from which all was born. The research will put science in touch with the Source of all creativity, all nobility, and all the psychic powers in man.

That's a profound statement.

As I said, I would be happy to make it even in my last breath. The human race is evolving in a certain predetermined direction, under a certain law, which of course, it would need a long span of time to understand thoroughly. Now if this evolution continues in a healthy way, we progress. If this evolution does not continue in a healthy way we stagnate, degenerate and deteriorate.

There is also another danger. If this evolution does not occur in a healthy way, then it can occur in a morbid or malignant way. That is the reason why, in this advanced age, with all the facilities and amenities that we have, the number of mentally distorted, or the insane, is so alarming, especially in the Western countries.

There is no reason why a nation that has everything that it needs, plenty and abundance of everything, food, provisions, shelter, sanitation, everything. Why then should there be such a large incidence of insanity? The reason is because the brain's accelerated evolution is going the wrong way.

Dear Mr. Nobel, all this will be confirmed by the progeny, that our most intelligent minds have started to lose touch with reality. They have started to become alienated. Otherwise, no sane human being who is intelligent, well educated, has knowledge of all the branches to which man has gained access to this day, who has books, newspapers, television and the radio to give him news about the world, should devise a weapon like the nuclear missile, a weapon that puts the whole species in danger of annihilation.

It is insanity. We are not able to see it at this point but we will see it after 20 or 25 years. It is craziness, because the human intellect has started to deteriorate. The Romans, Greeks, Indians, Mughuls all fell because their leading intellects deteriorated. The same is happening to the Western nations. The mind is losing contact with reality.

Do you today see any similarity between the fall of the Roman empire and the possible fall of our Western capitalistic system?

The same reason. You can see a striking resemblance between the ways of life of the last Romans and Western society of our day. The same overemphasis on carnal pleasures. The same dissension among themselves. The same appetite for abnormal things. You will find parallels between the two, the same breakup of families, the same lowering of moral and ethical values.

I want to come back again to the mind, because it fascinates me very much. We know a lot about the health and diseases of the body, and we cure them. In America there is the great body cult. We exercise, jog, play tennis and golf for hours. Our physical stamina is excellent, but we give little time to the development of our mind. There is an imbalance.

It is a great imbalance. Even if we were to exercise for hours every day, for the betterment of our body, and at the same time neglect the culture of the mind, we would gain nothing by all the labor. For the pilot, the driver in us,the power that is behind all our thinking and action, would act in the wrong way. And the body will be misused when the driver is not healthy and wholesome.

Now I will give you one more instance to show how the mind works. Please try to frame a picture of New York, London, or Zurich, and see the cars, trucks and buses whirling around and around. See the people rushing across roads, burning enormous quantities of energy.

Why this haste? Is the earth turning upside down? Is some other species threatening mankind from a distant planet? Is there a plague? What is happening? Why is everybody running and rushing and working, without giving any time to allow the mind to be in repose and in peace, in tune with itself? What is happening in all the cities, especially in the industrial countries, and now in the developing countries also? Speed, speed, and work and work. For what?

I agree, people rush about without smiles on their faces.

You will find laborers and farmers smiling and laughing in their fields and workplaces. But you don't find people laughing or smiling in the large cities of the world. They are working and rushing this way and that. Now let us carry this analogy a little further. Let us take a growing infant, tie him with a rope and whirl him around the head. Or put him in a small chair which is whirling for the whole day, so that he has no time to look at anything in a patient way, in a steady way. He is always whirling. Do you think such a child will grow into a normal adult?

Definitely not.

Then how can you imagine that all these crowds, from morning till night, who are burning this energy, burning their own energy in such a rush and tumble, with a craze for speed, with a mania for more and more, with an abnormal desire for pleasure, for excitement and adventure, how can you say that this mind will grow into healthy adulthood or into a healthy humanity?

This is the reason why a nuclear war is threatening mankind. To end all of this insanity, this riot of the intellect, of speed and creativity. See how calm and reposeful Nature is and how restless is man. And not only man but intelligent man, because he has no idea that a glorious future awaits him. He doesn't know that he has to evolve in a certain direction, that he has to reach a dimension where he will combine the scientist, the sage and the illuminated in himself. He has no idea that he is destined to live a life of happiness, peace and glory on the earth.

For him, the ideal is this whirling around, going in a jet plane, rushing from Bombay to London, from London to New York; and then when he gets there, rushing in a car, this way and that, spreading smoke and pollution everywhere.

The people who are doing it are acting with the best of intentions. I myself do it by rushing to meetings here and there.

I agree with you that they are well-meaning. They are merely following the current way. But this way is built on ignorance of the spiritual law and the evolution of the human brain and mind. So they are not to be blamed. It is the system that is to be blamed. And the system is based on ignorance. That is why my voice is lonely.

But it will be confirmed that man has not to live only for his body but for his soul also. And the soul needs self-reflection, repose, meditation, calmness, nobility, and those characteristics, those traits, which were once common among the spiritual teachers of the earth. So every one of us must also give some time for the culture of our mind. And that means retirement to secluded locations, prayer, worship, creative occupations, music, and just sitting in beautiful places, or among things which have an aesthetic value, which fascinate the mind, which make it grow, which make it expand beyond the narrow limits which are forced on it by our material existence.

It is very hard to tell another nation that we have gone in the wrong direction and that it should not follow our lead. We all have to learn by our own mistakes. How can we tell developing countries that to develop their societies and economies as Europe and America have is not the right way?

In the first place, one of the consequences of this type of life has been the two great world wars. Secondly, if there were real peace and happiness in this type of life, this hectic race after material possessions, then why should millions of people take to drugs, to meditation, to living simple lives, to building communities where they are away from this rush and bustle? Out of the remaining millions, or out of the whole, why should maybe ten percent go crazy?

When we calculate the crazy, the dropouts, the drug addicts, those who meditate, those who leave for secluded places, if we count them all together, we will find that only a small fraction is left that is happy with this type of life. The rest are not happy at all. We should take a lesson from this.

Add to what you have said the possibility that we may run out of energy, and we have another serious problem. But even if we had more energy available today, would it really be good for us?

Why should we, all of a sudden, take it into our heads that everyone of us is permitted to spend as much energy as would suffice for perhaps a hundred other people? The fact is, Mr. Nobel, that we are not planning; we are not doing anything by plan that keeps in view our evolution, the resources of the earth, the needs that we have and the economy of nature. We are doing everything haphazardly. Nations are doing it out of rivalry and competition. There is nothing like a planned economy anywhere on earth.

During the last hundred years we have consumed so much energy and so much of the resources of the planet that, if frugally employed, could have lasted perhaps a thousand years. If we were to continue the same extravagance and extend it to the developing countries, to all the four billion people, there will be nothing left in the next fifty years. So all this is just haphazard thinking and wrong planning, without any idea about survival.

We have to live a frugal life, just as nature is frugal, parsimonious. A frugal life is good for our health, both inner and outer. Any new source of energy, even if discovered or developed, would not solve our problems. It would just add to them.

The present population trend indicates that around the year 2000 we will have a world population of some six or seven billion. If our problems are difficult to solve today, we can only imagine how they will be with that many people.

In calculating the needs of the population, we do not take into consideration that the human brain is evolving and that each individual needs more than we assign to her or him. Therefore, if the earth can sustain a population of, say, four billion people, then when the factor of evolution is added, it would only be able to sustain three billion or even two billion. Each individual should have something more for his evolutionary processes than what would otherwise be needed in the normal way. This is not understood anywhere.

We should have a population for which we have sufficient out of all that is produced by the earth. This can only be possible when the needs of the population and the planning done for it are on a global basis. What would be needed are men and women who are cultivated, trained, and who have reached to other dimensions of consciousness, in charge of important offices. That is the only way to safety. Otherwise, under stress, a normal mind will give way in the present complex societies of the world.

Thank you very much.


Written by: Gopi Krishna
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