The most natural Way

III

We are all the time confined to and concerned with the physical bodies. But we have to reach the True Home – the home of our Father. We must first come above the physical consciousness. It is from there that the long journey homeward begins. 

Strait is the way,

but when once you are put on it you have to traverse further and further.

My father’s house has many mansions.

There are many planes and subplanes in the Kingdom of God, which you have to pass through, one by one, before you reach your Home. That indeed is the Ultimate Goal of human life, and all our endeavours must be directed to that end. It does not mean that we should neglect our duties of daily life. It only means that we must wake up from our self-complacency and gradually try to rise to the reality of things and devote some time to knowing the Self within us. This can be done, no matter where we are, what we are, what religion we profess; provided of course we have right direction and proper guidance from a Real Adept in the line.

This is the point that Kabir raised in His discussion with the pundits:

My friends, you think that just by being a Hindu you will reach God. But that is not enough.

No doubt, allegiance to a particular religion is no bar to entering the Kingdom of God. All social religions are good in themselves and serve a useful purpose in their own way, yet each will have to work out his own salvation by himself and nobody else can do this for him by proxy. The Ultimate Aim towards which all religions converge is salvation; but the means to salvation lie within, and we shall have to traverse the Way back to God, and that Way back is one and one only for all mankind – the way of death in life.

All the Masters Who came in the past spoke of this way – the way of inversion or entering within. If we traverse on this way, and learn to die at will – as Kabir puts it, hundred times a day – or as a Christian Saint tells us that He died daily, then death can have no terror for us and we will not be taken unaware when it comes and will not get lost at the last moment, but smilingly kick off the mortal coil and march ahead as a matter of routine.

Sant Kabir further told the pundit:

I tell the people to remain in the world and go to the wilderness. I only tell them to face life and to fight the battle. I only say: Maintain your bodies well, for they are the True Temples of God. Maintain your families, for they have been given to you by Gods Grace. Maintain them. God resides in every heart. Have Love for your family, for all the social religions, nay, for all mankind as a whole. This is what I mean when I say: ʻRemain in the world and yet out of it.ʼ

From where do our attachments arise? They originate with the body. We are attached so much to it that we cannot distinguish our True Self. When we have to leave it all of a sudden, we feel lost.

Therefore, Kabir says:

Remain in the world; but enter into the Kingdom of God, see the Light of God by opening the Third Eye or the Single Eye within. When you rise above body consciousness, you will find this physical frame to be mere dust, a clod of clay.

Dust thou art, and unto dust returneth. You are then cut off from the body from within, and consequently from the outer environments. You will be in the world, yet out of it.

Sant Kabir compares such a life to that of the stately swan that, living in the water, takes to its wings, soaring high and dry.

Nanak speaks of it thus:

So we should live in the world and yet out of it.

But we are simply attached to the body itself. We know nothing beyond this life. We say: ʻRight here now and forever, eat, drink, be merry, for this life is all in all.ʼ

At times the Masters have to tell the Truth, bitter as it may sound, in very clear terms, because They have Love for humanity and They wish all to reach the goal.

When Christ entered the temple, do you remember what He said to the money changers there?

Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house a house of merchandise!

Similarly, Kabir said to the pundit:

Oh learned man! You are like a maid that has no husband of her own and yet goes about telling other people that she can give them what she has not known all her life. You just try to work upon their emotions by high-sounding words and hypocrisy. But how can you show them the Reality when you have not seen it yourself? If you want to see God, come and follow me.

The truth of the matter is that those who have not seen God themselves cannot make others see. When their own Inner Eye is not yet opened and They do not see the Light of God within, how can They open the eyes of others or make manifest the Light of God?

Sant Kabir further told the man of learning: 

You have frittered away your life and lost life’s purpose. The human body occupies the highest place in all creation. It was given to you to know yourself and to know God. That opportunity you have frittered away. You are not only deceiving your own self but deceiving all those who come to you. Had you kept to yourself, it would have been much better; for then you would have lost life’s game only for yourself, and not made others lose theirs. You have never married – how can you tell others what marriage is? You have lost your opportunity; why waste that of others? Why are you making others lose their golden opportunity?

In the Upanishads, a story is told of King Janaka, a seeker of Truth.

He gathered together all the sages of the time and said, My dear friends, I want to know the Way back to God. Can you teach me its theory, since theory precedes practice?

It is said that one Yagyavalkya, a rishi, satisfied the king on this account. He got the price fixed for the purpose. But then another sage, Gargi, who had realised the truth, questioned Yagyavalkya: Look here, oh Rishi! Have you seen the Reality that you have spoken of, and expounded so well, with your own eyes, just as you see those cattle grazing in the meadow? And what did he say? Yagyavalkya, true to his own self, unhesitatingly admitted, No. I have only understood the theory; I am not a man of realisation myself. Naturally, Janaka had to search elsewhere for the practical solution to the problem.