The Real Reality

VI

It is only with singleness of mind that we can gain anything. We cannot achieve anything in the world, may be riches of the world or name and fame, without working for them wholeheartedly. The world is ready to adore you if you make yourself worthy of the Self in you. We know of Nanak and Kabir and love Them for Their own sake. Excuse me, very few of us know Their parentage and other details about Their families. While They lived They gave right understanding to the people, and the people to this day give Them great honour and reverence. We are fighting the losing battle of life, and God alone knows when we may get an opportunity like this: 

Oh Nanak, attend ye to the affairs of thy body so that ye may make God-Power manifest in thee and ye be engaged in singing the praises of the Lord.

It is necessary that the body may be looked after and taken care of so that it helps us in our objective. We may also square up our accounts with those around us. The main thing, therefore, is to realise self in us. If we do not do this, all else is of no avail. 

In this context Guru Arjan says: 

Accursed are all our deeds: the foods we take and the comforts alike, accursed are the fineries with which we wrap our bodies, accursed also are the friends and relations that surround us all, if, with all these, we do not reach the Lord. For once we lose this opportunity and let it slip away, we are lost.

It is the same old story that all the sages have, from time to time, given to us. But think for yourself how much you have changed. We hear a thing but do not act. 

Be ye the doers [?] and not hearers alone,

says Jesus. 

We simply hear and pass on to others but do not adopt them in our own life. We try to reform the world and not ourselves. 

Swami Ram Tirath aptly said: 

Wanted, reformers not of others but of themselves.

What would we get? 

He replied, 

God-head.

Guru Nanak now tells us of the sad plight of the body and how it wails in agony. 

Woe unto me, oh Nanak; what a shame that no one now bothers for me.

When the Lord of the body leaves the body, what remains? Now it ceases to have any value, and nobody is prepared to keep it on for any length of  time. All get keen to dispose of it as quickly as possible. It is regarded as an abomination in the house; and so long as it remains, one cannot do anything else. This, then, is the dirge of the poor body in distress lying unattended and not cared for. All the life?s labour is undone in a moment. All religious creeds, all social orders, and all possessions of the world remain behind. 

One may have the finest steeds, immense wealth, and the costliest of clothing; oh Nanak! none of these would go with the departing soul and all shall be left behind.

Nowadays we have big limousines for our transport. We have air-conditioned and centrally heated mansions to live in. We have brocade and chiffon draperies with which to cover our bodies. We indulge in all these luxuries so that we should feel cozy and comfortable. 

After all the body needs something in which to be wrapped. Why wrap it with costly material beyond our means? We can have a simple shelter over our heads. But everyone tries to run a race and outstrip others who are in affluent circumstances. And what is the result? Man is forced to beg, borrow, or steal. An honest man cannot, honestly speaking, afford to have all these things. But he is forced to adopt foul methods to meet the increasing demands of his wife and children. If he fails to do so, he is nagged day and night.

We have become slaves to fashion and, like a weathercock, move this way or that with every whiff of the wind that blows. Our ladies can do much to help the earning members in the family ? the lesser their demands, the lesser the chances of men going out of their way to procure and secure ill-gotten gains. It is said that a housewife can build or raze down a house just by the point of her needle. If an average man gets two square meals a day and a simple night shelter over his head, that is enough. The rich and the poor go alike empty handed. 

We have before us the cases of Croesus, Alexander the Great, and Mahmood, the iconoclast. All of them were great monarchs, each in their own way. What did they take with them while departing from the world? Nothing. Each shed bitter tears of repentance. Repentance, though good in itself, cannot cure the past. This being the case, it is always safe that one should earn by honest means than to acquire plenty of money by oppressing others and trampling on their rights. 

In short, 

One cannot amass riches without resort to dishonest and unfair means; but alas! in the end, all shall remain behind.

And the poor soul clothed in the old mental coverings takes its solitary flight alone. 

Oh man! thou have tasted all the pleasures of the world, but what thou hath not tasted is the Elixir of Naam, sweetest of them all.

In the world we have been late and soon with everything pleasurable. Everything has had pleasure in one form or another: 

The candy, sugar, molasses, the honey, and the milk, all these things are wonderfully sweet; but, oh Lord, none of these reaches to the sweetness of Thy Name.

God is Light in fullness. Our Soul, too, is a spark from that Light. We are so constituted that we find no rest until we rest in Him. A part is ever restless until it rests in the whole. A conscious soul, when conditioned, keeps moving up and down in the wheel of life. It is only the unconditioned Soul ? fully awakened ? that can reach the Ocean of Consciousness. Conditioned in the body and the mind, we have been embellishing our environments and not the indwelling spirit. Take care of the house as much as possible, but do not forget the indweller of the house. He, too, needs as much of food and attention as the body. The spirit, being of God, is to be fed by the Power and Spirit of God ? the Holy Word or Naam. 

All this has to be done even as a householder. A true horseman is one who holds himself firm with his feet firmly settled in both the stirrups. There is no need to leave your hearths and homes and to go into the wilderness. A boat on the surface of the water sails smoothly and not on dry land. The God-Power has to be contacted while in the body and in the world and not otherwise. I am telling you all this from my personal experience. Even if one goes into the forest, he is still dogged by the problems of life. Even for his bare sustenance, he is to depend on others. The memories of his family and children continue to haunt him all the time. Here, too, one gets attached to trees, develops kinship with forests and the silk-skinned animals, like spotted deer, and milk animals like goats and cows. So, leaving the house under the stress of circumstances or otherwise does not matter much until there is real Inner Detachment ? Vairagya. One living in the midst of the world and worldly activities still can be detached if he develops right understanding.

Take, for instance, the case of Raja Janaka. He was Raj Rishi, a royal sage, who was unaffected by the splendour of his court and ruled well and wisely. Thus the question is one of changing one?s angle of vision. One may live where one may be, carry on one?s usual vocation or calling in an honest and straightforward way, but at the same time have an Inner Awakening which would automatically free him from all thoughts of his surroundings.

And the Inner Awakening, as said before, comes through the Grace of some Word-personified Saint Who makes the Word manifest in us: 

Oh ye, take it for certain, without the least shadow of doubt, without the active aid and guidance of a Perfect Master, none can get out of the mighty maze of the world.

The need of the Guru is a must if one wants to ferry over the sea of life. Even a renunciate cannot do without a Guru. So is the case with a householder. But a householder needs a Guru Who has Himself been a householder. Why? A Guru who has never passed through the vicissitudes of life can hardly understand the difficulties of worldly aspirants for God. One who has lived in the world and has risen above the world can give us a correct lead God ward. He tells us that there is hope for everybody ? even for the worst of sinners. Every Saint, He says, has had His past. Rome was not built in a day. Things can be mended and changed by regular daily practice, even while living in the family.