The Night is a Jungle

III

Guru Gobind Singh Ji broke down the religious narrow-mindedness; it was a great work. It is not an easy task to break old rituals, even though the basic teachings are the same given by Guru Nanak, Kabir and other Masters.

Ravi Das Ji says,

He cannot be bought, but is attained through True Devotion.

It is also said,

Count the executioner as the purest, if God resides in his mind.

Anyone in whom God is manifested is the purest of all. If the system that Guru Gobind Singh Ji Maharaj introduced could be implemented today, all life’s uncertainties would be removed. From the very beginning I have thought that there should be a common kitchen and everyone should eat there. Everyone is subject to the attitude, ‘this is mine, this is mine,’ but it is an obstacle. All are not at the same stage of development, but there is great hope for those who are sincere and willing.

So today we celebrate Basakhi, because the Khalsa Panth was started on that date. Many people have the wrong understanding of the word Khalsa – He is the One in Whom the Light is manifested.

It has even been said that,

The Khalsa will reign over all; all those who will sit at His feet will be saved.

You will note that those who come to His feet will be saved, not the rest. The Khalsa is not formed from outer appearances, and in the end only the Spiritual Men will rule. The Spiritual Person in Whom the God has manifested Himself is the Khalsa, and those who come to His feet will be saved; others will have to remain in their humiliation.

That which man accepts as law through generations of customary habit is viewed by the Masters from a detached and therefore more accurate angle of vision. They see no value in religious highs and lows. They light the Light within all and reveal that all are one and the same. The so-called gurus remain as gurus and their disciples remain disciples; but the True Masters say no, we are One and the same.

Our Hazur used to say,

No emperor wants his son to remain an official.

A True Saint desires that the followers also become Saints. All men, from both human and Spiritual Levels, are one and the same. He who is the Controlling Power is the Giver and the Doer. Even the meaning behind the puja or namaz – Hindu and Muslim devotional practices respectively – is the same. With puja, a lamp is lit and then puja performed, while the Muslims place their hands on their ears and utter the sound called baang! On the Path of the Masters the initiate is taught how to place the hands on the ears and hear the Inner Sound. One should listen to this Inner Baang – Music of the Spheres –, which is spiritually efficacious.

Guru Nanak once went to Shiraz, in Persia, and there He met a Muslim priest named Rooknudin, who asked the Guru,

Have you ever seen the house of the Lord?

Guru Nanak replied,

Yes,

and proceeded to describe the physical form: 

It has twelve minarets, six at each extremity (joints of the arms and legs); fifty-two spires (thirty two teeth and twenty nails); and two windows (eyes).

It is also said,

In a lofty special palace, Khuda (God) is giving the baang.

So one should be able to understand clearly that the True Mosque, Church or Temple is the human form. Mosques are forehead-shaped, church steeples are nose-shaped, temples and gurdawaras are dome- or head-shaped, all model imitations of the True Temple of God. 

This body is the temple of God in which the True Light is seen.

Maulana Rumi tells us that for those whose eyes are not open, mosques are made with clay and water. For the awakened people – the Complete Masters – the mosque is this True Heart, at the seat of the soul.

During my Western tour I told the people many times that God does not reside in temples made with stone, but He Himself made the house in which He resides. But we have forgotten the True Temple and respect the man-made outer images of the True House.

What tragedy that we go to the imitation temple, leaving the natural mosque to bear the labour.

The man-made model was intended to teach us that there is such a thing as Inner Light and Sound, and we should have learned to withdraw to experience It; but instead we are worshipping any image, indiscriminately. In Sacred Solemnity we are clutching the outer skin, oblivious to the fruit that lies within.