Question: Is God responsible for all? How can there be such a character? I can’t buy that this creation is all a cosmic joke. From where I’m sitting, it’s not that funny!

Swamiji: When I am driving a car, there are two forces: a blind force of gasoline and the discernment of the driver controlling and steering the vehicle. Now when the driver drives at 80 miles per hour on these terrible Indian roads, he will of course go off the road and crash into a tree. Can we say that the crash is the responsibility of the gasoline by the grace of which the car was moving?

In the same way the Life Principle gives us life, but what we do with it is up to us. If we are wanton, useless fellows, the life energy curses us. If we evolve to know the Truth, the life energy blesses us. So force is the same, we are free to do what we want with the energy—it’s up to us. It is self-effort based on free will.

Q: If it is true that the reality is only the Pure Infinite Self, why are we here?

S: Everywhere I go I hear this question, especially from you teenagers. And I myself must have asked this question of my teacher a hundred times. It is a natural, logical doubt. If there is a kind, all merciful Lord and the total phenomenal world is projected from that Lord, then why are we suffering in it? The general answer is that the question is wrong; therefore, the answer is not available.

The other day a friend and I were going along the road talking of the latest politics and the upcoming elections—the topics of the day—when somehow the subject moved to philosophy. “I wonder why we are here in this world,” my friend mused and I could not answer him.

As we were walking alone we came to a movie theater that was playing the latest film. When I saw it, I asked him: “Have you got enough money for a ticket?” Since he replied “Yes,” and I also had enough money in my pocket, I said, “Oh, boy! Let us go to the movies.” We purchased our tickets and entered the theater.

The movie had already started, so we did not have to wait in line. When we stepped inside the theater, we found ourselves in utter darkness. The usher approached us and looked at our tickets, then with only a pencil of light he carefully guided us down the steps to a particular corner where he pointed to our two seats. We sat down. My friend was very interested in the film; therefore, he started looking at the picture and getting lost in the drama. Remember, this is the same fellow who was just asking: “Why are we here?”

When he was fully engaged in the plot, I tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Hey, friend, why are we here?”

Who compelled us to go to the movie theater? Isn’t it a fact that if we, in the movie theater, remember the world outside, we cannot enjoy the movie? We must completely forget home, husband, wife and children. If there are lights in the theater, neither will the film have any meaning. Think of it: it must be in ignorance, in total darkness, that we sit down and watch.

Now 873 people are there in the theater on that day. Do you think that all of them are seeing the same picture? Some are there to enjoy the plot; others for the beauty of the scenery; others are interested in the gorgeous costumes the actors are wearing; still others want to observe the techniques of photography. Distinctions are made: some identify with the hero, some with the heroine; another is getting excited because the murderer is going to murder. Each observer, according to his personal interests, interprets and appreciates the picture.

Now the more I ask my friend, “What are we doing here?” the more he tells me, “Keep quiet!” He doesn’t want any disturbance at all.

Again I ask him: “Why? Why are we here?”

It can only be for two reasons. Number one, we go to the movies for entertainment. So for our enjoyment, we go to the pictures. Or I may go to the movie if I feel that I may study something that I don’t know—to learn something. Enjoyment and education are the only two reasons that you go into the dark place called the movie theater. You pay your hard-earned money voluntarily!

Once you are watching the movie, you may realize that the picture is boring, or it is filthy. You accept that you were fooled by the colorful advertisements. My friend, you have the right to get up and walk out. Under the Constitution you have all the freedom to get out of the show—at any time. But none of us will go! Even if we leave, we will just get a cup of coffee and a tasty cake and come back for the next show. We don’t want to miss anything!

Fun and learning, these are the two things for which you and I have come here. We have come voluntarily; nobody has pushed us. You thought it would be a wonderful experience, for “I" am Infinite, Eternal, Immutable. What is the use of this power? I will express myself and make myself into many.

So you look at the wide screen of life and go on imagining—lovely pictures. There is only a blank movie screen. Nothing is moving; only images, coming and going, produce the illusion of movement.

The more you think about it, the more you realize probably this is the reason there is so such fascination for movies. They duplicate what we are doing every day. We generate image after image. “This is my enemy number one. This one is my beloved.” And within six months, “That beloved is now my number one enemy, and that enemy has become my beloved.” These projections and subsequent agitations occur because the Truth is not known.

Q: So that is why the word karma just means action—the apparent action that keeps the show going?

S: If there is no desire, there is no action. If there is no action, there is no fruit, or result, of an action. Neither is there an actor to receive the result. Only when you put yourself on the level of “I did this” and “I did that” do you pull yourself down into the web of cause and effect.

Stand above it. Observe consciously and alertly the play of nature. Don’t worry, the world will play on without you!

So our actions will have but two motives: first, by doing something, I hope to gain a reward; or by not doing something, I plan to miss a punishment, that is, to avoid some suffering or pain. Don’t forget even meditation is karma, an action; meditation also drops away.

Q: What about the practice of karma yoga for spiritual evolution?

S: When I put a pinch of salt in a tank of water, it will have no salty taste. When I am acting only for the sake of myself and my wife, then the bond of karma is stronger; if I am acting for sake of the nation, then desire gets diluted. Eventually, even the desire for working in the nation will drop away. Just as when I maintain a desire for sleep in my mind, I automatically drop all other desires and go to sleep. The desire for sleep ends in sleep.

Karma yoga is a practice to exhaust the innate vasanas. There is less agitation if I am thinking of my nation instead of my family.

Q: How do we know there are these vasanas?

S: How do I know everyone has different tendencies? I just ask each one in the room to write down his three greatest desires. They will all be different. The swami wants an ashram. The teenager wants a motorcycle—his desire is to make some noise and attract attention. [Laughter] Yes, it’s natural desire for a teenager.

The Lord says, “Don’t blame me! I’m only the contractor; you gave me the blueprint.” If you complain about your life, He’ll just pull out the blueprint and tell you, “Sir, I did it according to your plan.”

So you have to change the blueprint. That is self-mastery.

Q: Swamiji, what about accidents?

S: There are no accidents. For each effect there is a cause. Sometimes we do not immediately recognize the cause, but if we examine the situation carefully we will see there was a unique series of incidents contributing to every accident.

One bright, sunny morning Mr. Rao and Mr. Bose suddenly met each other in their respective vehicles at the southwest corner of Connaught Circle precisely at 10:06 a.m. The attending officer called it an accident. But was it? Upon examining the evidence, we note that Mr. Rao had slowed down to admire a beautiful girl on Park Street or he would have been past that spot at 10:06 a.m. Whereas Mr. Bose was happily driving along, singing cheerfully, when he realized that he was late. He pressed the accelerator, thus arriving at the intersection exactly at that time. Actually, their meeting at that precise moment was the result of a hundred such incidents, Mr. Rao’s wife did not serve breakfast on time, Mr. Bose drank a second cup of coffee, and so on.

Q: What about when a hundred persons are killed at one time, like in a plane crash?

S: Why do you wonder at the death of one hundred when thousands are dying every minute? It is only because they are not in one place that you never notice it. But when one hundred die together, it will make the newspaper headlines and everyone notices.

Q: Does an enlightened person have karma?

S: I, having committed a crime in the South, move to the Bombay area, install myself in an ashram and live here contentedly hidden away as a swami. However, the clever police in Kerala discover that this very same Swami Chinmayananda, now decked out in the orange cloth of a sannyasi, is the one and very same scoundrel who robbed a bank in Trivandrum last year.

A police officer is sent to the ashram early one morning to arrest me. Upon inquiring at the gate, he is directed to my cottage where he finds Shivaram, my personal assistant, at the entrance. When the officer shows Shivaram the warrant for my arrest, he is obviously shocked, but very politely he asks the officer to wait a moment while he calls me.

He comes and knocks on the door of my bedroom and calls out, “Swamiji! Swamiji! An officer is here to see you.” When no answer comes from my room, he quietly puts the extra key into the lock, opens the door and slips into my room.

After a seemingly long delay, Shivaram returns to the veranda and assures the officer, “I’m sorry. I’m afraid he is not here.”

“You mean he is gone?”

“Yes, he is gone,” replies Shivaram.

“Where will I find him?” The officer has added some urgency to his voice.

“Well, he is here.”

“You just said that he was gone!”

“Well, what I mean to say is that he is here, but he is gone,” answers Shivaram in his meekest tone.

“Let me see him this minute!” demands the officer.

So Shivaram quietly leads him through the door to the bed where lies the dead, cold body of the swami. What can the officer do? He returns to the station, marks “File Closed” on the bundle of records and tosses them in a box.

Laws are for living creatures, not dead ones.

Q: So the law of karma is in the dream too.

S: Yes, certainly. However, the life of the body goes on. The sages have described it as an arrow shot from a bow. Birth began the course of this life. Just as you cannot catch an arrow in mid-air, for it will continue toward its target, the body will not suddenly disappear at God-realization. Certain experiences that the body experiences are referred to as prarabdha karma; they are inevitable because the arrow has been shot and it is heading for its target—death of the body in this case.

Q: So the realized one is not affected. It’s all the same to him?

S: That’s right. You go to sleep tonight and dream that you are in prison with no decent food, no decent clothing and no decent heating. You wake up. You realize you were dreaming; you know that you are the “waker.” Right?

Q: Yes.

S: Then you go back to sleep and go back into the same dream, but this time you remember that you are the waker and this is only a dream. What will your reaction be to the cold and hunger now? You may still groan and fuss about them, or maybe not. It’s all the same.

Q: What about this good karma that we hear so much about?

S: Both good actions and bad actions are for your own happiness—I want to help the poor because it makes me so happy—that attitude. An ego is involved. The gold chain binds just the same as the iron chain.

Q: What about predestination?

S: Accepting predestination is fine as a mental attitude—if you accept everything as destiny. But we call failure destiny, and success we call “I”. Destiny is what you meet in life; your free will is how you meet it, the attitude you have and the action you take.