The Night is a Jungle

I

What is the difference between God and man? Man has mind, without which he would be the same as God.

Kabir tells us that,

All this (creation) is a part of God.

The soul is the same essence as that of God; it is a drop of the Ocean of All-Consciousness. However, through being joined to the mind, it became Jiva; but as it is of the same essence as God, when the mind is removed only God is left. So God plus mind is man and man minus mind is God.

Gold is made into jewellery and other attractive articles, but that which comes direct from the mine is called ore, although the gold is there. When the mud and other minerals are filtered from it, the pure gold is left. And so when final analysis is made, and the mind and senses are removed, man is then God.

One can conceive the great possibilities of which to avail oneself, having received the blessing of a human birth, to separate the consciousness from matter and realise who one truly is. When the soul became Jiva, by association with the body and the world, it adopted the same identity, for wherever the attention is directed one becomes as that. So now, lost in creation it cannot find itself and return to its True Home or origin until it is free and pure again. He Who has found His own Self, has realised Himself, has become One with God – He is man in God or God in man. The same Light which has become effulgent in Him is sustaining the whole creation.

What is God? In Truth, He is not Light, He is not Sound; but when He expressed Himself, these two principles emanated from Him and came into being. Our soul being a drop of the wave of that God-into-Expression-Power, a direct connection with It will take us back to the source from which It emanated – which is Anami or absolute God. This is the message extended by all True Masters Who have come, in different mode or language, according to the time.

Everything has a natural inclination to return to its original state and source. If you turn a lighted candle upside down, yet its flame will go up; for its source is the sun. If you throw a ball of clay in the air as hard as you like, it will but return to earth again from whence it came. If the soul gets freed from mind and senses it will automatically be drawn towards God.

The first thing we must do is: still the mind. The very foundation of yoga is controlling the intelligence. The word yog is derived form yuj, which means ‘to rejoin,’ and to rejoin the Lord is the ultimate task ahead of man, a task which can be achieved only in human form. Others forms are only for various enjoyments. Some human beings because of their past karma, also live to enjoy, whereas others are not so heavenly burdened and therefore the Truth is more apparent to them; they have better powers of differentiation. The latter type of human being can realise himself and realise God.

Today is the festival of Basakhi¹ which is celebrated in different ways according to the various religious customs. Nature itself celebrates by sprouting of new buds and leaves, and the new life begins from this season. We should take a lesson from nature and sprout forth with a new life. In the Hindu religion there are ten avatars, and certain Hindus celebrate this day as a double event: the birth of Parshuram, and the overcoming of evil by Narsing Avatar.

Parshuram was a great yogi. Narsing was the avatar who saved Prince Prahlad and killed the Prince’s Father, the tyrant King Hirnaikashya, who while ruling the people with a rod of iron had declared himself God and had made them worship him. By performing severe austerities he had obtained a great boon from the gods: that he would never die by any hand born out of life, nor during the day or night, nor within or without any building, not on earth nor in the sky, etc. His son Prahlad became a True Devotee of the Lord and solemnly declared that God was God and not his Father. The King tried to kill the Prince by various methods or torture, but the pure devotion of the child repeatedly drew on the Grace of God for salvation, until finally his Father ordered that Prahlad should embrace a red-hot iron column. Confronted with such a formidable test, the child at first hesitated, but on seeing an ant crawling up the column he stepped forward with joy and placed his arms around the column. At once the column split asunder and out stepped Narsing Avatar in a form born out of the fiery structure, terrifying to gaze upon. He took the King in his powerful hands, and as the sun went down he stepped into a doorway, neither inside nor outside, and tore the King apart.

I congratulate the Buddhists on this day, for the Lord Buddha was born on Basakhi; on Basakhi he received enlightenment and on Basakhi he left his body finally – Nirvana. So both religions have good reason for celebration. For us also it can be a great day, for we are constantly lamenting that we should start life anew; so we should start this new day as the beginning of a new life in which the flowers should blossom and the fruit should come forth. There should be so much fruit on each branch that the weight may bow the fruit to the earth.

This is a great day for Sikhs also. In truth, Sikhism is not a cult; this is what I feel. One poet says that the world changes, and a True Man is he who changes the world. On this day, some three centuries ago, Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Sikh Guru, started the Khalsa. In those days the people were killing each other in the name of religion, and He started to erase the controversy by forming the Khalsa. A Khalsa is a True Disciple, and on this day the Guru found five True Disciples among His followers and made them leaders of the people.

There was religious enmity during the life of Guru Nanak, Who was once asked Who He was and replied,

I am not Hindu, neither Muslim; the breath of this body is Allah and Ram.

He meant that Allah and Ram are One; but they still insisted on further explanation, so He said,

If I say I am a Hindu you will kill me, Muslim I am not; Nanak is that invisible Power playing in this puppet of five elements.

They were concerned only with outer labels, and He had no desire to claim the outer form which signifies a Hindu or Muslim. His answer served to show them that man is greater than his outer appearance, for he is truly the power which resides in the physical form. We all stick on labels, sooner or later, entangling ourselves in conformity, but in truth we are just men – just human beings.

On this subject, Guru Gobind Singh Ji says,

The caste of all humanity is one.

We are all born the same way and have been given the same faculties. During the life of Kabir, as an open challenge the Brahmins declared that they had come to the world by direct orders form the mouth of Brahma; but Kabir replied,

Oh Brahmin, if you came direct from God, why were you not born differently than other men?

Even the outer and inner physical structure of all men is the same: no one has four arms, etc. All have the same privileges, whether born high or low according to their karma. 

As for these karmas of the past, Tulsi Sahib says,

The great law of karma has created the world’s conditions; each will take the fruit of his actions.

Valmiki was a low caste untouchable, who became Maharishi Valmiki! Because according to karma from his past, the change was bound to take place. But these days the children of Brahmins are called Brahmins indiscriminately, and so on in other castes, for as time passes, chains upon chains are added in the name of religion, and the basic oneness of all men is forgotten.

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Explanation: 1) The first day of the Indian month of Basakh, corresponding approximately to 15^th April.