In this excerpt, Swamiji explains why good conduct promotes knowledge in Kashmir Shaivism. And how “at the place of God Consciousness everything is good . . . ” and why even “Too much bad is also good.”
Read on in this excerpt from the online series Kashmir Shaivism and the Transformation of Life, featuring Swami Lakshmanjoo’s revelation of “Fifteen Verses of Wisdom” the Bodhapancadashika.
SWAMIJI: One person is filled with knowledge. If at the same time, another person is [not] filled with knowledge, where is ignorance?
ERNIE: Where is ignorance?
SWAMIJI: Hum . . . there is no problem.
ERNIE: No, one person has a problem!
SWAMIJI: No, if you have got, you are ignorant . . .
ERNIE: And you have knowledge.
SWAMIJI: . . . and I have knowledge, what that . . . it is one!
ERNIE: No then I suffer.
SWAMIJI: You are not separate from me; I am not separate from you . . . if I am all-knowing, and you are all not knowing. Good!
ERNIE: For you.
SWAMIJI: No, for you both. For . . .
ERNIE: How can it be good for me?
SWAMIJI: No, if there is only one being. If there is only one being, if you once realize there is only one being in the universe; they are not separate beings. If they are not separate beings where there is the problem?
ERNIE: But I am in ignorance and I don’t realize that?
SWAMIJI: Then you have to perform . . .
ERNIE: Then I have a problem
SWAMIJI: . . . yes, you have to perform rituals, you have to perform [good] character, conduct, all rules and regulations.
When once you realize that, when you come to that point of realization.
For instance, you are ignorant, you are ignorant. At the same time, I am not ignorant.
ERNIE: Yes.
SWAMIJI: You are ignorant, you are not ignorant.
ERNIE: I have both these qualities?
SWAMIJI: There, at the point of knowledge.
ERNIE: Knowledge, yes.
SWAMIJI: Then the problem is solved.
ERNIE: But then the question arises why is it that conduct . . . ?
SWAMIJI: There can’t be why!
ERNIE: But why is it that rituals and conduct . . .?
SWAMIJI: It is a trick to show that it is not at all.
ERNIE: No, but then, what about a man who becomes debauched, and he goes the other way, and he becomes less moral . . .
SWAMIJI: Yes, less moral.
ERNIE: . . . more wild. Isn’t it possible for him to also, then the same?
SWAMIJI: No, he is going down and down, he is going down below. He is falling in the pit of darkness. He is falling in the pit of darkness, and at the same time, he is falling just to rise.
ERNIE: He is falling just to rise?
SWAMIJI: Yes, when he will come . . .
ERNIE: Hit the bottom?
SWAMIJI: No, when he will receive good beating in the bottom, then he will try to rise. Then he will try to rise. At the time when he has risen, when he has risen and he has known that ‘I have not fallen at all’, he will laugh to himself. He will laugh to himself and he will know that ‘I have not fallen at all . . . it was only play’.
ERNIE: No, my question is, why is good conduct [important], why does that promote knowledge?
SWAMIJI:
Because everything is good there. Because at the place of God-consciousness, at the state of God-consciousness everything is good, everything is divine, there is nothing bad.
Bad is only created to feel the goodness, to get a good taste of goodness.
ERNIE: Contrast.
SWAMIJI: Yes.
BRUCE P: So, a little bad is good for one?
SWAMIJI: Yes in some place. Too much bad is also good. You get bad, bad, bad and worse and at the same time you will drown, and then you will get good beating there. You will get good beating there and try to rise. That is the trick . . .
ERNIE: But the real message is . . .
SWAMIJI: . . . nothing is done.
ERNIE: . . . that good conduct is the way you rise.
SWAMIJI: Because there is all goodness. And from that goodness everything has come out, bad, good and everything has come out.
At the place of God-consciousness, at the state of God-consciousness, everything is good, everything is divine, there is nothing bad. It is the embodiment of goodness, embodiment of purity, embodiment of divinity.
Read more… Kashmir Shaivism and the Transformation of Life, Six-part webinar series featuring Swami Lakshmanjoo’s revelation of “Fifteen Verses of Wisdom” the Bodhapancadashika.)
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