Book II / XVIII

Shabd: What It does

Shabd is All-Consciousness. It is just a wave in the sea of consciousness. Man is a drop of the Ocean of God, and both are of the same spirit. While one is the Ocean, the other is the wave and the third is a drop of All-Conscious God. The wave of conscious Shabd cannot but, like a powerful magnet, attract and draw to Itself the conscious drop of the spirit. The spirit finds no rest until, riding upon the Sound Current, it reaches the heavenly home of the Father and attains salvation. The sound is surging in Its fullness and the spirit needs but to contact It to rise above all limitations into the limitless eternity.

Surat and Shabd are naturally related to each other. Shabd is characterized by Light and Sound principles, wherewith the mind gets stilled and the spirit, freed from the clutches of the mind, is irresistibly drawn by the Shabd and is taken to her native home from where the Sound Current is emanating. On the other hand, those who take up practices involving Pranas cannot go beyond the frontiers of Prana which extend to the mental or astral heaven (Chidakash). But a Shabd-yogin can go freely, openly and honourably to wherever he likes, because Shabd pervades everywhere without any limitations, and reach the true home of his Father.

My God is everywhere and at all times, and becomes manifest by practice of Shabd. 

Guru Amar Das, Gujri War M3

Shabd is the means of finding God. A contact with the Shabd means contact with God.

A communion with the Word is union with God, and all endeavours then get crowned with success. 

Guru Amar Das, Sri Rag M3

Shabd is the only way that leads to the True King.

In the living soul is the Life of life (Shabd) which becomes an usher to the great King. 

Guru Ram Das, Sarang War M4

Shabd is the Way that leads to Reality. It is a barque that can take the Jiva safely across the sea of matter to the mansion of the Lord.

The Absolute God and the spirit alone with Shabd, the connecting link between the two, constitute the holy trinity, for the same Power of God is working simultaneously in all the three. The spirit in man has no separate existence independent of God.

Oh Kabir! The spirit is of the essence of God.

Kabir, Gond Kabir

Though all spirits are of One Reality, yet each one of the spirits feels that it has a separate existence.

Sach Khand or the Kingdom of God is within us but none can enter therein without proper guidance. For admittance thereto, we must invert and become a little child in innocence and purity, for then we can catch the saving lifeline of Shabd which leads Godward. By communion with Shabd, we are freed from pleasure and pain, mind and matter, and rise above the pairs of opposites, and attain liberation from the cycle of births and deaths.

Shabd is the live and conscious Life-current of God which has both created the world and sustains it. It is the involuted seed that has evolved into a mighty tree laden with many coloured flowers and fruits. Whatever now exists, exists in Eternity and whatever goes out of existence also goes into Eternity. Everything is in the great Deep, rising momentarily to the surface in the form of tides, waves, ripples, bubbles and the like, appearing and disappearing before our eyes – the Unmanifested manifesting Himself into so many forms and patterns.

Shabd is the root-cause of the creation and the creation is the resultant effect thereof. All that sprouts from and comes out of the roots is already in roots in a condensed form and in fullness of time grows and fructifies. When a ray of the sun falls on a polished reflector, it begins to reflect the sun itself. In the same way, when the mind is purified and there is left nor a trace of I-ness in it, it begins to reflect God's Light from within. Just as the ray of the sun is not different from the sun itself, so also a spirit, which is nothing but a ray of God, is not different from God and begins to manifest the hidden Power of God, with proper training and guidance in the Science of Shabd or Word.

Shabd (Dhun Atmak) is the true primordial Word as taught by St John in his Gospel. It is responsible for creating the various grand divisions, divisions and sub-divisions of the universe right from the highest spiritual region down to the physical world in which we live. Emanating from God, the spirit current worked out the miracle of creation and is sustaining it and controlling it in all details. The practice of the Sound Current, as taught by the Masters in all ages and in all countries, is the highest religion and confers the highest boon – to wit, liberation from the bondage of mind and matter while still living. But contact with Shabd can be established only through the grace of a Master of the Sound Current and not otherwise. 

Shamas-i-Tabrez, a Muslim, divine speaks of Shabd as follows:

There comes a Sound (Nida), from neither within nor without, from neither right nor left, from neither behind nor in front, from neither below nor above, from neither East nor West, nor is It of the element: water, air, fire, earth, and the like; from where then? It is from that place thou art in search of; turn ye toward the place wherefrom the Lord makes His appearance. From where a restless fish out of water gets water to live in, from the place where the prophet Moses saw the divine Light, from the place where the fruits get their ripening influence, from the place where the stones get transmuted to gems, from the place to which even an infidel turns in distress, from the place to which all men turn when they find this world vale of tears. It is not given to us to describe such a blessed place; it is a place where even the heretics would leave off their heresies.

Truly, the Shabd is coming from the direction in which the soul has to go. Without Shabd, the soul remains in darkness and fells helpless.

Without the aid of Shabd, the soul wanders blinded in ignorance and knows not the Way out.

Kabir

All sages and seers have counted upon Shabd as the only means of salvation. But one cannot take hold of the lifeline of the Sound Current without initiation into the esoteric teachings of the Masters from a competent living Master-Soul and practising the process of soul-withdrawal at the still point in the body between and behind the two eyebrows. This is moving from the circumference of life to the centre of life and from here the soul, following the lead of the Sound Principle, proceeds to her native home, the Mansion of God, the source and fountain head of the divine Melody Itself.

Shabd thus leads us to an altogether new life – life of the spirit as distinguished from the life of the flesh. Christ too taught of this new life which our Christian brethren have forgotten with the lapse of time.

St John, in his Gospel, tells us,

Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God. Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh, is flesh; and that which is born of the spirit, is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again.

The wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth; so is everyone that is born of the spirit.

St John 3:3,5-8

In the Book of Ezekiel we have:

A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you an heart of flesh. 

Ezekiel 36:26-27

This new life of the spirit begins from the day of initiation into the mysteries of the spirit, call it what you like: Deeksha as the Hindus do, Baet as the Muslims say, Baptism as it is known among the Christians, or Pahul as among the Sikhs. The Vedic seers gave it the name of Duey Janama which literally means second birth. The life of the spirit begins not with the theoretical exposition of the spiritual science but by a practical demonstration on the spiritual plane of the spirit-current made manifest. Here the invisible and inaudible life-stream is made both visible and audible to the spirit within, converting the atheist into a theist in the true sense of the term. It is imparting the life-impulse and making It throb in every pore of the body. This coming back of the soul to the realization of her true nature and rising into Universal or Cosmic awareness beyond the walls of finitude is true resurrection or coming to a new birth and a new life. To die in the body while living, is to live in the spirit.

St Paul describes it thus:

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; ye not I, but Christ liveth in me.

Galatians 2:20

The life of the flesh and the life of the spirit are two distinct and separate things, exclusive of each other. 

This is why it is said,

He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake, shall find it.

St Matthew 10:39

Guru Nanak speaks of it:

The birth in the Master releases one from the cycle of transmigrations.

Guru Nanak, Ramkali M1

Among the Muslims it is called Fana-fil-Sheikh or Death in the Master which is just the same thing as Birth in the Master for this death is but the beginning of a new life.

Shabd thus takes us out of the ignorance which characterizes both mind and matter, purifies us through and through and gives us a new lease on life – the life of the spirit, which is unchanging and eternal – as one breaks away once and for all from the body and bodily attachments, and sees the new world without the help of the outer eyes.

Communion with the All-pervading Word of the Master is the highest virtue, and takes one to his native land to drink the elixir of life and to see the new world without the help of the outer eyes.

Guru Ram Das, Nut M4

The early morning hours are best suited for practice of the Sound Principle, for the mind is yet fresh out of sleep and has not yet wandered into the daily routine of the physical life.

In the early morning hours, commune with the Word leaving aside all attachments, Nanak would like to be the slave of His slave who engaged in the Word and won what is lost to the world.

Guru Nanak, Parbhati M1

At the ambrosial hour of the early dawn, be ye in communion with the divine Word, and meditate on His Glory. 

Jap Ji, Stanza 4