Manav Kendra

Man is in the make

The work at the top level has brought some happy results by removing narrow mindedness and bigotry to some extent. The religious leaders of different faiths now design to sit together for mutual discussion and understanding but without a general awakening among the masses, the fraternal spirit of tolerance cannot last long. We have not only to resolve religious differences but have to pull down granites walls of separatism which are being imperceptibly built to divide mankind.

The Saints come from time to time to revive the Unity already existing in man by emphasizing that:

1. We are already One as man. Man is the highest in all creation. We are born in the same way and have the same inner and outer elemental structure.

2. Man is incarnate soul, a conscious entity and is of the same essence of God, and as such we are members of one family and related to each other as brothers and sisters in God. The potent cause of human suffering is that we cut ourselves off from the Great Unity of the whole which is God.

3. Man is controlled in the body by the same Power called by the various names – God, Word, Naam, Ek-Onkar and many others.

4. The right understanding that we are all One as man, as souls and as worshippers of God – the Controlling Power – will result in right thoughts, right speech and right action and bring the Kingdom of God on earth, which is within us.

5. Man has to know his own self before knowing God and He cannot be known by feelings or emotions or by drawing inferences which are all subject to error, but by rising above out-going faculties and mind through moral and spiritual with the help of a Competent Master.

6. Human body is the True Temple of God. God resided in the temple of body made by Him in the womb of the mother and not in temples made by human hands. Soul also resides therein. The Divine Spirit manifests there in the form of Light and Sound which is seen with the Third or Single Eye and heard by the Inner Ear. These symbols of God are kept in the outer temples and churches which are constructed in imitation of the True Temple, the human body.

7. God made man and man made religions. Religions came into being after the Masters left the physical vesture, so as to keep Their teaching alive. We are men first, then the various labels that we bear on the body, viz., Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Jains, etc. We can be truly called as such only when Light and Sound become manifest in us. To be born in the body temple is a blessing, but not to rise above body consciousness – i.e to know self and God – is sinful. While remaining in our respective faith we must rise above them and should become followers of Faith – to love all His creation.

8. All Saints and Sages have taught that human birth is a rare opportunity. We can know God only in human body. To keep the body fit we must give it proper food, apparel and rest. If the body passes away without achieving its real aim and purpose we lose a golden opportunity for ‘What does it profit a man if he gains the possessions of the whole world and losses his own soul?’ And all religions are intended to turn out ideal men and women – the Sikhism to turn out Khalsas – in whom Light of God is effulgent –, Hinduism to turn out seers of Light of God. A Muslim is one who sees the Noor of God. A Christian is one who sees the Divine Light.

9. Let man’s physical body be in full blossom and his soul be full of Glory intoxicated with the Ringing Radiance of God, radiating Love all around to the whole creation and wish ‘Peace unto all the world over His will’. All schools of thoughts were meant to turn out such like ideal men. Dark forces of evil have started popping up their heads among the masses owing to literacy, ignorance, superstition and orthodoxy. There has, of late, been a tendency to build communal and select zonal orders in the name of Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Mohammedanism, Christianism and Sikhism upon the members of each wherever they may be.

Strong barricades are being raised by the followers of the various religions viz. Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Muslims, Christians, etc. who are being harangued to unite inter se. How far toleration will go and integration will be possible? At one time, the Panth is to be in danger, at other the Dharma or the Shariat and no one pauses to think for himself as to what danger it spells to mankind.

This menace is not a new one, nor is it peculiar to any one country or to this age alone. Time and again, the opposing forces come to the surface to counter the effect of Spiritual Forces. The Saints had, therefore, to take into account the lower rungs in the social order beginning from the common man which will result in True Integration of man. Guru Nanak and Kabir, in Their own time, had to tackle the problem from both the ends so as to bring about True Oneness or Integration among the followers of different ‘isms’.

They gave out:

Man is man first and man last. Inspite of the bodily labels, he had the same hidden power that is working in all elemental moulds, may be Allah or Ram.

A True Love of God will love all His Messenger Who came in the past, all scriptural records of Their self-communion and communion with God. He will love all mankind and the rest of God’s creation in many forms. He will love all holy places sanctified by the presence of Godmen at one time or another and now revered as places of pilgrimage. He will never injure nor molest any thought, word or deed. In short he will be a man-of-God on earth imbued with God virtues of:

1. Truthfulness,
2. Harmlessness,
3. Selflessness,
4. Chastity,
5. Universal Love, and
6. Selfless service and sacrifice.

These are the six cementing factors in the world. These are the six pillars on which the super structure of peace can be raised both within individuals and in the world around them. These virtues when practised would make this earth a Garden of Eden where God and man would once again commune face to face. All this, and much more, can be gained by getting hold of the saving life-lines within and direct contact with the spirit.

The Divine Path is like the razor’s edge. But as the Master often remarks the developing of God-Consciousness in man is not so difficult to develop in him the humane factor, of kindness, tenderness, mercy and consideration making him a human being in the true sense of the term and conscious above all the one self same self not only in him but in others as well and the rest of the creation. This is termed Man-making. One has, therefore, to become an integrated individual, whole in himself, before he can aspire for God.

God made man after His own image, but man, in his imitative zeal has, through ignorance and superstition, played hell not only with Him but with himself as well. Instead of entering into the sanctum sanctorum of the body with a pure heart, clean hands and an understanding head, bubbling over with Love for all, he is charged through and through with selfishness and greed, pride and prejudice, hatred and animosity; thinking of evil all the time and doing evil deed at every step, just for the sake of paltry gains of no consequence. Tormented by the lust of the flesh, he is tossed on the foaming sea of seething feelings and emotions and is pathetically unable to hold his barque on an even keel. A slave of the senses, he runs riot in the fields of evanescent sense-pleasure which he considers the be-all and end-all of human existence. To convert the sinner into saints is no easy task. It requires Herculean effort to cleanse the Aegean stables filled with filth for aeons.

Man-making then is an indispensable pre-requisite for fashioning man into godliness. Self-knowledge precedes God-Knowledge.

Man, know thyself,

is the first essential on the Path. In the outer form and mould – the sentient man-body or the tabernacle of flesh – is hidden the Real Man his Very Self. We have lost the Inner Man in the might swirl of the mind and the senses by plunging headlong into the fields of sense-pleasures.

The man-body is the Temple of God in which the Holy Light is shining all the time. Until the man in the man-body draws himself out of it, he cannot witness this Holy Light. Man-making means reversion or inversion by drawing in and controlling from within the outer-man as any master of the house would do in his own house, rather than to be a helpless thrall therein, ever a prey to chance winds and waters of desires.

Man, the homo sapiens, is the nucleus of mankind. He has in him potential energy to transform himself and then to transform others not by precept alone, but by his own example. Man is man first and man last, with no outer labels of caste, creed, race or nationality; sex or group affinities, religious or church loyalties, linguistic or territorial limitations.

Perfection, an all-round perfection in body, mind, intellect and spirit is the Ultimate Goal of man. It is on the health of the soul or spirit in man that the health of the body, the mind and the intellect depends. It is to bring about this transformation that an organisation has to come into existence under the name of Manav Kendra.