The Brahma Sutra on the Final Salvation of the Soul: 1.2 - Swami Krishnananda

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Wednesday 22, July 2026, 14:45.
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Vedanta & Upanishads
The Brahma Sutra on the Final Salvation of the Soul: 
Inauguration: 2
Learning the Art of Being Always Happy
Swami Krishnananda

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Inauguration: Learning the Art of Being Always Happy-2.

There is also emotion in your mind. You have a feeling. Oftentimes, you feel something which is not necessarily what you are trying to understand through the intellect. The reason may argue out a conclusion which is perfectly valid systematically, but the feelings will say, “After all, I am something different.”

Feelings are the motive force in your personality. The emotion is the engine which pumps energy into the whole system, and even the intellect sometimes becomes subservient to the operation of the feeling. Whatever be your intellectual conclusion, professorial scholarship and degree that you hold, if the emotions revolt, you are immediately torn into a non-rational person.

There is a third aspect of the performance of the mind, which is called volition, or determining power. The power of the will is one of the aspects of the operation of the mind. Understanding, feeling and will are the three primary aspects of psychological functioning.

But there are deeper layers of our personality, all which we have inherited through the various incarnations we have experienced in our life. We have not suddenly dropped into this world from nowhere. A very complicated and comprehensive evolutionary process determines everything that is taking place in creation, and we are involved in this evolutionary process. It is not enough merely to participate in the integrating necessity in a family life; we have also to be integrated with society outside, with all the situations arising in the world. Finally, we have to be in harmony with the demands of nature, and ultimately with the requirements of the law of God Himself.

This personality, this human being, this 'I' or 'me', whatever it is, is not sitting outside the world. It is a great participant in the history of the cosmos. This is very important. It is not easily given to us during our usual syllabus or curricula in the colleges and universities. There, we have only compartmentalised teachings; it may be mathematics, physics, biology or law, and there is no connection of one with the other.

A person who is a master of physics met me one day. I mentioned to him casually in talking that there was a king called Ashoka in India. He asked, “What is Ashoka?”

“You have not read history?”

“But I am a physicist,” he said.

This is very strange. We may be a physicists, but we should have studied some history also. How do we suddenly jump into physics and know nothing about Indian history? We do not know world history, we do not know cosmology, we do not know anything about astronomy, the stars in the heavens, and so on.

This kind of education, where we are compartmentalised completely like in a barbershop, is no good. Humorously they say that a barber was telling, “I only know how to put soap on your head, but shaving I cannot do. You go to another man for shaving.” So the poor man with soap on his head had to go to someone else. This kind of education is no good. We must be complete and happy in our own being, even if it is on a moderate scale. I do not mean that one should be omniscient, but moderately one is a complete, educated person. One should not be an ignoramus.

Toward this end we have taken the help of various learned people here. We have some professors from universities, who have now retired. Each one is a master of one subject, but they are all devotees of Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj, so they will be able to handle the subject in such a way that the teachings stand in unison with the ideals of the great founder of this institution. These ideals are spiritual uplift, enhancement of the spirit, and the recognition of the Atman, knowing your own Self. Know yourself, and then you will be free.

Most people say, “I know myself. What is wrong with me?” This kind of self is no good. This is the physical self which you are speaking of; and even if it is a psychological self, it is inadequate. There is a social self with which you are connected, and there is an emotional self, which arises on account of your likes and dislikes in respect of things in the world. There is a political self, as a citizen of a country. Many layers of self are there. Now, when you say, “I am studying the Self, the Atman,” what kind of self is it?

There are three kinds of self, at least, mentioned in philosophical circles. One is the false self, which is the physical self. This physical self is not the true self. It is temporary, vanishing, evanescent, fluctuating, perishable, and it has a beginning and an end.  Then there is the social self. You always identify yourself with a community, a nation, a language, a culture, etc. Then there is the emotional self, as I mentioned. When the mind is tied to something, positively or negatively, liking or not liking, you create another self, a secondary self of emotional attachment

Whatever you are thinking in your mind, that becomes your self. The mind will not move towards anything unless your self also has alienated itself to some extent in that direction. You can take no interest in anything unless the self has transferred itself from your physical location to that particular object. Whether you like it or you do not like it, either way, there is a self-alienation taking place, and all sense perception thus becomes a travesty of affairs, an arena of muddled activity, so that no one knows what one is doing from morning to evening.

To free a person from these difficulties arising out of a maladjustment of personality with one's own self with society, with nature and with God Himself, an integrated system of teaching has to be conceived, which was in the mind of the great founder, Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj. I am not going into details of all this just now; I am only expressing my happiness that I am in the presence of very interesting, very able, highly learned students.

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