Riddle of Life

II

Naam is not a word but the Controlling Power that is keeping everything in its proper place. It is the Name of the Nameless. The Rishis, Munis and the Mahatmas called this Power variously as Ram, Allah, Wah-i-guru, or God. These are mere word-names while Naam is something original and primordial, free from all attributes. This is a heritage of the Saints, in Whom It works in fullness; and it is He Who can give a contact to us. The word-name you can have from anywhere, and you may go on repeating the same all your life. But that would not be enough. These word-names, too, have a value; and it is better to do something than not to do anything. We have a respect even for the word-names of God because they signify something, some attribute of the Attributeless.

Oh God! we worship Thee in all Thy names.

Again the question arises as to what name is most proficient and most effective in leading us to the God-Power.

What name in the world is worthy of being contemplated and would enable us to ferry across the sea of life?

The real name, as said before, is the Naam-Power that comes as a gift from the Godman. The very knowledge of this subject only comes from Him. Without the Master-Soul we cannot contact Naam and attain salvation.

Where do we get contact with the Naam-Power is the next question. The Name – Naam – is the precious Waters of Life. The fountain of the life-giving water lies within the body. The saving life-lines are not to come from anywhere without. These are already in the body sustaining and enlivening us as they are doing so in many solar systems in the vast universe. Now, the question is – where is It in the bodily mould?

It is said:

The Naam is invisible, ineffable as being incomprehensible. But it may be said that It has an immense loving sweetness in It.

This attractive Naam is more than candy-sweet. We cannot have an approach to Naam by our own unaided efforts. By mere repetition of Vedic formulas and formularies, yajnas and pilgrimages, fasts and vigils, and performances of rites and rituals, we cannot have a contact with Naam. Our social teachers who, too, aim at inculcating the Love of God among their followers have not been able even to make us love one another. With all their best efforts based on scriptural knowledge, they cannot deliver us the goods except in the form of raising our emotions and feelings for the time being. They themselves are groping in the dark and cannot take us out of the darkness. When the leaders of various faiths and creeds are quarrelling amongst themselves, they cannot give us a lesson in Universal Love and social well being. These are the very persons who become the worst enemies of the Awakened Souls. It was the Jewish priestcraft that sent Jesus to the cross and called Guru Nanak and Socrates as perverted beings. You can see for yourself what evil names they give to a Godman.

Nanak, therefore, says:

The meditation of the True Name comes to the fortunate few. The scriptures have their value, but not much.

A Godman simply and directly leads you to the God-Power, and contact once established does everything to progress Godward. Without the Word, we are hopelessly and helplessly moving up and down in the giant wheel of life.

It is said:

The fearsome sea of life is limitless with no holds to hold on; with no boat and no boatman to steer, we endless float on and on.

In such a situation, we have no other aids except of the Chit, Manas, intellect, and our personal ego; and these are the very things that keep us away from the saving life-lines and help us to drift indefinitely. Is there then no other remedy? We have one.

The Word is the ship and the Word personified is the Captain Who may, if He likes, take us across.

Naam, then, is the only means whereby we can have a safe landing on the other side. In the Ramayana, the greatness of Naam is stated thus:

The impersonal and the personal are the two forms of Brahman, but above them both is the Naam, as I understand it; how long can one describe the greatness of Naam? Even Lord Rama cannot sing adequately the value of Naam.

The famous author of the Ramayana has drawn a sharp distinction between Lord Rama and Ram-Narain, the All-Pervading Power. In the same strain, Nanak has said:

Oh Nanak! one may read all the books of the world with devotion; one may write of His greatness with the speed of the rushing wind; with all this, none can do any justice to His greatness.

Naam, after all, is the Name of God the first and foremost manifestation of the Nameless.

All of us are repeating His Name, one or the other; but none knows the Name; as none has found his way to Naam, all are ignorant of the significance of the Name.

The Name is something very subtle. It is the vibratory sound-force of Truth (the Holy Word), and can neither be written nor spoken of in so many words. It can be contacted by the Grace of a Godman. The Guru or Godman is called in the scriptures as Sacha Padshah. Why? Because He has with Him True Riches which are eternal and not subject to decay as worldly riches are.

A momentary severance from the Word brings in untold sufferings and a good-by to happiness.

This is what Guru Nanak feels like all others who are in constant communion with the Word. And this, too, is the fate of all of us at all times. Why are we eternally miserable? Simply because we have not established any contact whatsoever with the name of God His Power and Spirit:

Oh Nanak! the entire world is in the throes of sorrows and sufferings; he alone is happy who is established in His Holy Name.

The Spirit of Truth is our very life. We have never known It and much less contacted It. We are far away from It, drifting along the current of time downward and outward. And the result? – all misery and all sorrow.

Swami Ji Maharaj also gives the same explanation for all our troubles:

I know thou are in extreme tribulation; ever since thou turned away from the Sound Current, and sold thyself to mind and matter.

Nanak goes on to explain:

The tongue that delights not in gratitude to the Name has no right to exist.

He even goes to the extent of saying that an ungrateful tongue need be severed and cut into pieces. To forget the benefits coming down from God through the Godly Power is criminally heinous. When we are living by the Spirit and Power of God in us, we must one time or another turn our attention to the very Life-Impulse that is sustaining and upholding us. Instead of this, we are going the other way around.

We are enamoured by the gifts of God and have forgotten God, and the wonder is that we are unaware of what we are doing.

We have, after all, to leave the world. We have been respited for a while and have been bought with a ransom. We must be thankful to Him for the human birth for us. The realisation of this truth is the be-all and end-all of human existence. If we do realise it, it will be well and good. If we do not, then the purpose of life is wasted.

The physical body is subject to decay and death; and when death comes, we rue.

As we sow, so do we reap. All our good and bad actions keep us in eternal bondage. Once we rise above the plane of the senses, we get in touch with the Power of God and then all of our wandering ends. This is a path that leads upwards and our senses cannot help us to gain it. It is a pure presentation from the Spiritual Treasurers of the Guru. King Janaka got it from Ashtavakra, and Sukhdev Swami from King Janaka. One was a king who got these riches from a poor – in the worldly sense – recluse, and the other, a born hermit and son of a sage – Ved Vyas – had the good fortune to come by this Spiritual Wealth from a mighty king, Janaka. So, it does not matter whether a Godman lives in a forest hut or in a royal palace. But He must be a Godman and not pose as such. It is all a gift of the Perfect Master; and without Him, we can have no access to Spirituality in the true sense of the word.

With a Perfect Master to guide us on the God Way, and perfect devotion unto Him, one can reveal God easily in his own home and escape bondage while here.

No one asks you to leave your hearth and home and be a forest dweller. While living in your house, you can set apart some time two to four hours a day for your own Self. This, too, is your own work and the most important work, I would say, but badly neglected. A tree horseman rides well with both his feet set in the stirrup on either side. One must keep his balance between the world without and the world within. Be wherever you are. Remain in the social order to which you belong. There is no need to change your religion. Mind that Spirituality is no religion in the ordinary accepted sense of the term. It is something real and earnest. It is a process of practical self-analysis. Everyone is welcome to have an experience of it in the laboratory of his mind. Everyone a Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, high or low, young or old can benefit from the science of soul. It is a common heritage and not a reserved right of one or another country, one or another nation, or a class of persons. One has, of course, to lead a pure life and earn his own living that are the prerequisites for this Path.

Nanak says:

He who earns his living with the sweat of his brow and shares his earnings with others – poor and the needy –, oh Nanak! such a one is fit to know the secret Path and shall surely have an access thereto.

This is a condition sine qua non for an aspirant. For the teacher also emphasis is laid on right living and right livelihood.

He who calls himself a Guru or a Pir and depends upon others for his living, beware of such a one and bow not unto him.

Excuse me when I say that Spirituality, too, has been degenerated into a business and is being exploited by unscrupulous persons for selfish ends. This is why the generality of humankind has come to hate it and given it the nickname of Gurudom. And to a great extent they are right. Their bitter experiences lead them to decry Gurudom, and they prefer to take refuge with the scriptures that, as said before, are quite helpless in giving any actual experience. We need a demonstrator to demonstrate Truth as any other demonstrator would do in a scientific experiment, of course, by carrying out from either of them until some Awakened Soul opens our Inner Eye and we begin to see Reality.

In certain respects, an ignorant person is much better than a learned one. He at least accepts things on faith and starts doing what he is asked to do. He does not waste his time in the why and wherefore of what he is told. He is asked to climb up and he begins to do it. On the contrary, one who is learned would inquire why he should do so, the extent to which he is to climb, and where is the guarantee that he would not fall down? It does not mean that we should blindly accept things. All that I mean to say is that one should understand the elementary principles; and with an experimental faith, start with the experiment and see for himself the results.

The True One is to be served, and only a worthy disciple can know the Unknowable.

This then is our duty. We must try to become a Gurumukh – a worthy disciple. If we want to take the fullest advantage of the company of the Master, we must surrender our all to Him. But do we do so? It is said:

The seekers after God far from finding God lose Him outright; they lose Him in the storm the mind raises.

The thinking mind and the reasoning intellect raise such a tempestuous storm that clouds our very vision. We are unable to peer through the dust of our own raising. To have a correct idea of the goal and the way leading to the goal, we have to go to some theocentric Saint. What does He tells us?

We come into and go from the world according to our deeds and harvest what we sow; the invisible writ of the Lord canst not be washed off and better it is to abide in His will.

Our deeds, good or bad, bring their reward and consequences, as the case may be. As soon as their momentum runs out, we have to come back to the earth plane. Whatever our deeds, they are done on the plane of the senses, and we are inextricably drawn by them. A touch with the Divine Power makes us karma-free, neh karma; and with no strings, we fly upwards to the Home of our Father. But unfortunately we are earthbound, and the law of gravitation pulls us down.

We have to rise beyond the gravitational pull of mind and matter so as to escape from the bondage of all the material and mental zones. This is the right understanding that the Master gives. He takes us out of the ever-revolving gyres of the material world. An experience of the life of the spirit takes us out of the material and mental worlds. So it is said:

Without a touch with the Lord’s Name, there is no escape; and a contact with the Name comes through the Master. The Name of the Lord is par excellent; it is the Name that upholdeth all.

So we know what is Naam. It is not something vague or imaginary. It is the Real Power responsible for creating and sustaining the universe. It is the same Power that is enlivening us as well. But we have lost touch with It. The lost Word can only be regained through the help of some Word personified Saint. He takes us out of religious rites and rituals that constitute Apara Vidya and keeps us entrenched on the sense-plane. Consider the whole proposition coolly and dispassionately. If you can on your own escape, there is nothing like it. If not, there is no harm in seeking help from Someone Who knows the way. Life comes from life, as light from light. Godman is a must for the God Way.

Nanak says:

Godman is my all; He is the very life of my life.

The Atman is a Universal Power and is as much our own Life-Impulse as of Nanak. The only difference is that Nanak as an Awakened Soul sees the Power, but we are ignorant of its working and do not know what It is and how It works.

Nanak being conscious of that Power says:

Oh God! let Thy will prevail regardless of what I may think and wish for.

Again it is said:

A person connected within always speaks from inspiration and not on his own.

Similarly, a Muslim Divine observes:

Whatever a Godman says, it is from God Himself, even though the words may seem to be coming from His servant.

What They utter is all true from the level of the spirit. We, on the other hand, are being consumed in the fires of egotism and infatuation. And we are being tossed by greed and egoism. This is the case with each one of us.

An Awakened Soul takes a correct view of the whole situation and prays:

Oh God! have Mercy on the world which is being consumed; save it as best as You may for there is no other help.

Next comes an exhortation from Nanak:

Oh Nanak! it is by communion with the Word that we come to possess all virtues.

In the Gurbani the term Naam and Shabd are used to denote the same thing the Power of God. Speaking of Shabd, it is said:

It is from Shabd that the creation comes into being and dissolves; again, it is from Shabd that it is created anew and thus goes on.

Shabd is of two kinds: One is the Voice of God and the other is the voice of man.

We get our contact with the Voice of God only through a Master-Saint.

The Word is the essence and has to be practised. And this is to be communed with in the company of some Saint.

Let us take another small piece from Dharam Das, a celebrated disciple of Kabir:

All the books, including the Vedas, speak of the same thing; without Name all else is false and is of no consequence.

It is not something only to be talked of, but one that has got to be practised and communed with. The Master establishes your contact with the Sound Current that is already within you and gives an actual experience of It. He makes manifest in you what He has in fullness in Himself.

Dharam Das bewails His lot in life in the material world and says:

Oh Lord! to what an awful place Thou hast hurled me down; the domain is eternal and fit for Hansas, while this world is under the sway of Kal.

Hansas are purified spirits who can discriminate between Truth and untruth.

I belong to Your Spiritual Kingdom, but I wonder why You have sent me into this prison-house of the world.

Similarly, a Muslim Divine speaks:

Oh Spirit! thy abode is in the high heaven; woe unto thee that thou art stuck up in an elemental mould.

We have the testimony of Swami Ji in this context:

Thy place, oh soul! is in the ethereal world; fie on thee that thou are earthbound.

You may take any other Godman and you would find the same thing.

Nanak at one place has said:

Oh Lord! Thou liveth in Heaven, while my abode is in the dust of the earth.

If we want to go to higher regions, we shall have to bid good-bye to mind and matter.

Learn to die so that you may begin to live,

say the Gospels.

Maulana Rumi also lays great stress on this point:

Oh friend! learn to die before death overtakes thee; for this is the only way to gain Life Eternal.

This is the Path of the Masters and all of Them speak in the same way.

Dharam Das, therefore, prays:

Oh God! grant me that Eternal Word which Thou hath given to Hansas, by communion with which, I may not have to come again into the material world.

Dharam Das further explains the two aspects of God – personal and impersonal:

The world is the interplay of the personal and the impersonal, and we are helplessly drifting along the current of time.

We are living in the duality of personal and impersonal God. We do not realise that these are both attributive qualities of the Supreme Being our only goal. We have to rise above the gunas – qualities –, Nirgun – attributeless –, and Surgun – with attribute. We are needlessly quarrelling about these two aspects of the Great Power behind both of them.

Now about Sat Purush, the primal causeless cause. Our final goal is the Spiritual Realm that is beyond the sway of time, and hence not subject to dissolution and grand dissolution. The Satguru never rests contented until He leads His jivas to Sat Purush, Whose Power works in Him fully and completely:

One who has apprehended and is one with Sat Purush is Satguru; oh Nanak, in the company of such a One, the disciple gains the other side and begins to sing His praises.

It is Satguru Who makes the disciple see the Power of God within him. After seeing the Spirit and Power of God, one begins to commune with the same – the Holy Word. Every teacher has his own access and reach in the Kingdom of God, and can lead us to that extent only. But Satguru, being One with Sat Purush, can take us to the highest Spiritual Region called Sat Desh which is eternal and everlasting.

With due deference to all the teachers, we have to see what extent they can take the soul out of the self – mind – on our journey to God – Oversoul. One who has not transcended himself cannot take us beyond our self. We have with us very little personal testimony of the Great Souls. Whatever They said was collected subsequently by Their followers, and hence cannot be depended upon with any degree of certainty. It can also be possible that the subsequent admirers may have missed something, some references to higher regions as may have been made by the Mahatmas in Their talks. So we have no right to comment on the extent of Their reach in the absence of direct evidence from Them.

Hence, a note of warning has been sounded by Nanak:

Say not that the Vedas and the scriptures are wrong; he who does not give due weight to them may himself be in the wrong.

Let us learn to dip inside and meet the Mahatmas Themselves in the astral world. As the spirit rises above the body, it gets into the astral realms and meets the denizens of those planes and sees for itself where they are. Once there in spirit, one can talk face to face with the disembodied spirits of the Great Souls already over there. There is no need to make guesses on the physical plane and to make uncharitable remarks.

Dharam Das now makes a supplication unto the Lord in the following words:

Oh Lord! I pray unto Thee with folded hands; oh, take me to my own original abode.

In this world we come again and again and die again and again. It is a realm of mortality where nothing is stable. Our True Home is somewhere else. We want to go back to our own Home from whence we came. This possibility is in the hands of a Perfect Master. He, being perfect, can take us to the land of perfection. Though we live by the same Power that is working in the Master, we are not yet aware of It and hence our ceaseless wanderings in the physical world.

Entangled in delusion, we are enamoured of the delusion; we remain all the time in the midst of mental hallucinations.

We are caught like a spider in the web of attachment of our own making.

We go where the heart is.

This Love of the world brings us again and again into the world. How to escape from the delusive attractions of the world?

The Master explains to us the channels through which the mind stealthily flows out; He tells us to blockade these outlets so as to hear the unending Music of the soul.

We have, therefore, to enter into the stream of this Music the Divine Music coming from above so as to be carried upward to Divinity. We have to invert and go back from the senses leading outward. It is in this way that we make a short shift of mental delusions.

This is why we pray:

Oh God! cut asunder all my doubts and delusions that may reach a state of perfect and reposeful rest.

We can reach this state only when we get out of the reach of the three gunas – Tri-gun-atit. So long as we are in the realm of mind and matter, we go into expansion. The Master extricates us from the extensialism, and with that on the merry-go-round of births and deaths comes to an end.

Now we come to the finale of the composition of Dharam Das:

Oh God, take me to Thy realm; the realm that is eternal, blissful, and ecstatic, for Dharam Das wants to put an end to the wheel of life.

All that is needed is to get out of the cycles of births and deaths. That should be the aim of all human endeavour. Dharam Das in these few lyrics has placed before us the same position and proposition which Nanak dealt in His psalm. All the Great Sages tell us of this very thing, and we, too, wish for it.

The social orders are immaterial, and so are the religious beliefs and creeds. There is no need to change your affiliations and allegiances. Them is no need to adopt any new modes of greetings. All these are good things as far as they go. We have, however, to forge ahead; and this is possible only when we cease to go into expansion. Reality is within us. It is our very life. It can be contacted with the help of some Awakened Soul. It is the most ancient science. It admits of no modifications. The only difference is that of the approach one may have. A person can take us up to the level where he is.

A Saint is the Master of the Highest Level. If you want to have right understanding, you will have to go to Him. His talk would be from the level of the soul, and not from that of mind and intellect. While talking of God and hearing of Him, you must have experienced a kind of serenity. If we were to get to Him, you can well imagine the great beatitude that you would feel. You have just to lead a pious life and adopt a conduct that should be an example for others. With an all around balanced living, you can easily transcend the physical zone. In brief, a contact with the saving life-lines is very necessary if you want to salvage your own soul.

What does it profit a man to gain the possession of the whole world and to lose his own soul.