JNANA IS INDESTRUCTIBLE

I have a sister who believes that the world is about to end in a nuclear holocaust. Many other people feel the same. Does Swami have any views on this?

Annamalai Swami: I do not think that the world will be destroyed in the near future. But even if it is about to be destroyed it is not something that you should think about or worry about. Keep your attention in the present; keep it on the Self. If you establish yourself in the Self you need not worry about the future of the world. If you realize the Self, nothing can touch you. You can destroy a jnani’s body, you can destroy the world that he lives in, but you cannot touch or change his Self-awareness.

The disappearance of the entire universe will not affect the jnani because jnana is indestructible. Consciousness, the substratum of the universe, cannot be changed in any way. When the world appears in consciousness, consciousness doesn’t undergo any change. So, even when the universe disappears, consciousness is unaffected.

Everything that appears will one day disappear. There is no permanence in the world of forms. But that unchangeable consciousness in which all forms appear can never be diminished, destroyed or altered in any way. If you learn to be that consciousness you come to understand that nothing can touch or destroy you. …

Ignorance causes us to worry about the possible destruction of the body. If you make your well-being dependent on the well-being of the body, you will always be worrying and suffering. When you know, from direct experience, that you are the Self, you realize that there is no birth and death. You realize that you are deathless and immortal. Self-realization is sometimes called the immortal state because it never ends and because it is never destroyed or even altered. If you keep your attention on the Self you can attain this immortality. If you attain it, in that ultimate state of being you will find that there is no birth, no death, no desires, no fears, no worries, no mind and no world.

- Living by the Words of Bhagavan, p. 294