I Am the Thread!🔗

7.6 Know for certain that everything living is manifested by these two energies of Mine.

I am the creator, the sustainer and the destroyer of them.

7.7 O conqueror of wealth [Arjuna], there is no truth superior to Me.

Everything hangs upon Me, as pearls are strung on a thread.

I am the sound in ether and ability in man.

7.9 I am the original fragrance of the earth, and I am the heat in fire.

I am the life of all living beings, and I am the penances of all ascetics.

‘I am the thread,’ He says. ‘I am the thread, the sutra, on which all Existence is strung.’

What a beautiful analogy! That is why He is the sutradhar, the controller and director of the cosmic play! Nothing moves, nothing can move without Him. Nothing can be created, sustained or destroyed in the absence of His energy.

People often ask me why I call myself Swami. They question me as to why I like to dress up or be photographed in many ways. I tell them that I do not even identify with this body. This skin itself is alien to me. So what is the difference between this skin and other coverings? What does it matter?

I look at myself the way you look at me, or the way you and I look at an idol. If this body is dressed up well, I feel good - the same way you feel good seeing it dressed up, that’s all. I am just a witness.

To all of you God is a mere concept; it is an idea. It is another play of your mind. You think of God and attribute various concepts to God. It is the same manner

in which you would talk about a friend or relative, perhaps more glowingly or less glowingly depending on your inclination at that point in time.

To you, your identity and your identification with your body-mind is real. Without this identity you are lost. You are rudderless. If someone does not recognize you, you suffer. The moment someone praises you, you are in seventh heaven. Your identity is your reality. 'I' is what makes you alive.

To me, God is the only reality. I live with God every minute, every moment. The body, mind and the body-mind identification does not exist for me. Therefore, when I refer to myself, I refer to that body-mind the same way you refer to it. I too call it Swami or whatever.

I cannot move a finger without permission from Parashakti, that Parabrahma Krishna. You may think, 'What nonsense He talks. He says He is enlightened and then He says there is nothing He can do. He can only do as Existence dictates.'

Nonsense or no nonsense, this is the truth. Whether you understand it or not, accept it or not, this is the truth. What makes me move, talk, see and do all that you do is what the Universe dictates.

My disciples know that when someone with deep faith in me comes with a problem, I say, 'I'll take care.' If it is someone who is yet to have that faith in me, I say that I shall meditate or pray to Anandeshwara for them. They go away happy.

My disciples know that when I say, 'I'll take care,' the result is definite. When I say, 'I shall pray,' something may or may not happen. When I say I shall take care, there is nothing special I do. I just pass it on to Parashakti. It is for Her to take care. Because I have that immense faith in Her, She always obliges. Things happen.

My disciples know that the mala that they wear, the string of rudraksha or red sandalwood beads, is not a mere mala. They see me in it. I tell them it is their hotline to me. When someone is desperate, he holds onto the mala and prays. Results are instantaneous.

All this has nothing to do with me. It has to do with Existence. The moment I feel that it is a result of my penance, it will stop happening. There is nothing that 'I' can do. There is nothing that this energy cannot do.

That is what Krishna talks about here. The great Master says, I am not what you see. I am not the energy that is manifested. It is not this six-foot Krishna with flute and peacock feather that makes things happen. It is the formless energy beyond Vasudeva Krishna (Krishna, the mortal being, the son of Vasudeva). It is Parabrahma Krishna (Krishna, the Cosmic Energy).

When we see a necklace or garland, do we notice the thread? If it is a pearl or diamond necklace we may get it threaded in gold, still we rarely notice the thread. We delight over the pearls or diamonds, yet never think about the thread unless it snaps and all the pearls and diamonds spill on the floor. Then, we blame the thread.

Krishna says He is the unseen thread without which no mala can exist. He says He is the unseen essence without which there can be no substance. He says He is the unseen energy without which there can be no universe.

Have you ever wondered how this universe operates? There are billions of planets like ours, millions of solar systems, thousands of galaxies and many universes. There is nothing that anyone can see controlling this universe. We need traffic lights and policemen to control traffic on our roads. In the Milky Way there are no policemen to control the movements of planets and stars. Yet they move unerringly, and we can predict thousands of years in advance what they will do.

Can you imagine the intelligence that controls multiple universes? How is there such discipline and order in that seeming chaos that no one is in charge of? No one is responsible, or is someone?

On the other hand, within this puny body of ours we try to control everything. We control the food we eat, how much we exercise, how much we play, etc. Yet we can predict nothing about it. Despite all the order that we impose, there is chaos.

Control does not bring about order, it never can. Freedom brings about order. Chaos is freedom. Chaos is choice. The ultimate chaos is Parabrahma Krishna; He is also the ultimate order.

Krishna illustrates what He said earlier with specific examples.

The beauty of Krishna's teaching in Bhagavad Gita is the depth to which He goes to make everything crystal clear to Arjuna. He makes no assumptions, takes nothing for granted. It is as if Arjuna is a child and He is the parent or teacher. For the Lord of the Universe to take the trouble to ensure complete understanding shows the depths of His compassion as well.

I explained earlier that in the five natural elements, the pancha bhoota, the essence of ether is sound, of air is touch, of fire is form and heat, of water is taste and of earth is smell. Krishna explains that He is the essential quality in each of these elements; also that He is the pranava mantra Om and the radiance of the Sun and Moon.

Life, any form of life in this and any other planet, cannot exist without this cosmic energy of Parabrahma Krishna. But living within this energy field we lose sight of this energy. We become energy-unconscious. Kabir, the mystic poet said hauntingly, we are like fish that are immersed in life-giving water yet cry out saying, 'We are thirsty.' Kabir advises: fool, become aware! You cannot be a fish in water and be thirsty!

This is an incident from Ramakrishna's life.

Ramakrishna asks his disciple Vivekananda, 'Narendra (his secular name), what would you do if you were a fly and you sat on the edge of a pool of divine nectar, amrit?’

Without hesitation Vivekananda responds: ‘I shall sip from it, of course.’

Ramakrishna says, ‘Fool, you should fall into that pool and drown. How can you fear drowning in life-giving nectar?’

We are afraid, always afraid. We have no trust in ourselves and therefore no trust in Existence.

If God were to come in front of us in any form other than what we recognize as Him, we would ask for His identification. Our intelligence is limited to visualizing Krishna in His yellow dress (pitambara), with His flute and a peacock feather stuck in His hair. If Krishna comes covered in ash, with a snake around His neck, the Vaishnavite fanatic will throw stones at Him. ‘That is Shiva,’ he will say, ‘I do not worship Shiva; Shiva is my enemy.’ There are people who claim to have imbibed Gita, understood every word the Lord says, and yet have questioned me as to how I can worship Shiva when I say Krishna is the ultimate.

It is for such ignorant fanatics that Krishna goes into such depths to explain that He is everything and above everything. He is the Creator Brahma, the Sustainer Vishnu and the Rejuvenator Shiva. He is not either/or; He is all and above all.

Q: Is the thread that Krishna refers to the cosmic energy?

In a metaphorical sense, yes, absolutely.

Strangely or perhaps not so strangely, in the recent developments in atomic or quantum physics, there is this concept of string theory. They say that the ultimate expression of subatomic particles, the minutest of the minute particles, is in the form of a string. No longer do they say that these particles are atoms or waves, but strings. It is a string constantly in motion. It does not have any fixed location at any given time. There is only a set of possibilities. However these possibilities are infinite. The string is the connection of all those infinite possibilities. Some call it the Tenth Dimension.

They do not know that there are a few more dimensions!

That is what Krishna is. He is a set of possibilities. He is a set of infinite possibilities. What the scientists say about subatomic particles is what ultimately applies to the cosmic energy, because we now know that energy and matter are the same, in time as well as in space. When the frequency is within our range of sensory or visual perception, we see it as matter. When it goes above or below this range, we sense it as energy; that is all.

When Krishna brings Himself to the level of Arjuna's visual frequency, Arjuna sees Him as his dear friend and

mentor. When Krishna goes into His vishvaroopa form, the Cosmic form, Arjuna needs third-eye perception to ‘see’ Krishna’s energy.

The thread is always there. Without the thread, there can be no coherent matter. Whether the thread is visible or not depends on one’s level of perception. A yogi, a truly evolved being, is constantly aware of that thread. The yogi constantly meditates on that thread. To such a person, only the thread exists. What exists around the thread, what the thread links together, is of no consequence to the yogi.

Once we catch the thread, nothing else matters. My disciples are used to my suddenly telling them, ‘Ok, now you have caught the thread.’ It is not an idle comment. It means that they have truly grasped the energy behind that statement. It means that they have experienced the truth of that statement. The rest are mere words that mean nothing.

One who controls the thread, the sutra, is the sutradhar, the controller. Krishna is the ultimate sutradhar. He is truly the one who controls everything in this universe.