The Journey Ends

The world begins when the one is lost, and it is natural that the journey ends when the one is found again. And this one can be found in many ways becauseit had been broken in many ways. When they pass through a prism, the sun's rays break into seven parts, the seven colors that form the spectrum; so also existence becomes fragmented.

The world is full of colors; color belongs to multiplicity. The color of God is white, the one being colorless. All sadhanas are only devices and techniques that seek out the one in the many - that reunite the fractions into the undivided, the integral. The Hindus contend that the one has broken into two: matter and spirit. If you get even a slight glimpse of the one within these two, your journey is complete.

There is another theory that the one has divided into three: truth, goodness, beauty. If you can see truth in beauty or vice-versa; if you see goodness in truth or in beauty; if you get a glimpse of the one within these three, so that all the three are lost and only the one underlying them all, ek omkar satnam, remains, then your journey is over.

Nanak says the one is divided into five because of the five senses. If you seek the one within these five you shall attain, you become the siddha, the emancipated one. It is of no consequence in how many parts you divide the one, becauseit is already divided into infinite parts. The important thing is to discover the undivided, perfect whole within the fragments.

The senses are five, but within these five, meditation is one: to understand this is to grasp the sutra. Telling the beads in a rosary has no meaning, but if you can get at the thread that holds the beads together, then you will have taken refuge in God. Holding on to the beads is to remain in the mundane world; but to grasp the thread of the beads is to attain God.

There are five senses, but who is within these senses? When you look, who is it that sees through your eyes? When you hear, when you touch, when you smell, when you eat, who is it that experiences the perception, the experience? Nanak answers that attention lies at the center and unites it all.

There is an ancient anecdote: A sannyasin was sent by his guru to the palace of a king with the instructions, "The king may perhaps be able to make you understand what I could not." The disciple doubted this, but he had to obey the guru's order. When he reached the palace he found it flooded with light, wine was flowing and dancing-girls moved to sensuous music. He was terribly pained, thinking surely he had been sent to the wrong place; so he asked the king to allow him to go back, explaining that his search was something different. How could the king who was himself lost be of any help to him?

The king said, "I am not lost but you will understand that only after you remain here awhile. Just to see from the outside is fruitless. If you take the trouble to look deep inside perhaps you may grasp the key. Your guru sent you here only after great deliberation." The key is already hidden within, and not in the sense organs themselves.

The king persuaded him to stay overnight. He was put in a wonderful room that was the last word in comfort, but there was only one snag: from the ceiling just over the bed hung a naked sword on a slender cotton thread. The sannyasin could not sleep a wink becausethe thread was weak and the sword could drop any moment. He was dismayed by this cruel joke.

In the morning the king inquired whether he slept well. "Everything was fine," said the sannyasin with some sarcasm. "It couldn't have been better, but what was the big joke of dangling that sword over my head? I couldn't sleep a wink with my attention glued to the sword all the time."

The king said, "In exactly the same manner the sword of death hangs over my head constantly calling my attention. The girls dance but my mind is not in them; the wine flows but it gives me little pleasure; the tables overflow with all kinds of delicacies, but I can't enjoy the food with the sword of death always hanging over me."

The five senses are the five openings through which you contact the outside world. Without them you cannot relate to life, but the more you enter into them, the farther away from yourself you go.

Dhyana, concentration, is hidden within each of the senses. When a particular sense points outward your attention moves outward through it. Therefore, when your attention goes out through one sense organ you become oblivious of the other senses. This happens because you know only through your attention, and not through your senses. Knowledge itself is attention. For example, you are sitting at a feast but a thorn has got into your foot and the pain is unbearable. You can never enjoy the taste of the food for the terrible pain engages your full attention, which flows only in that direction.

Another example: You have just been told that your house is on fire and your whole mind is on how to get home as fast as you can. Though you are walking on a road with many people you are aware of nothing around you. You don't notice the people rushing by, pushing one another, pushing you, or even that you are pushing others. You have no interest in what is being sold in the shops or what people are talking about. While your ears hear all, you hear nothing; while your arms touch the others you feel nothing. Your mind is entirely on the fire at your house.

The senses do not experience anything without your mind, their experiences rely entirely on your attention. When you pour your attention into a sense organ, then only is it motivated and gains strength. But if you withdraw your attention from all five senses, what remains is the one, becauseall the five will be lost instantly. And the real search is for this one alone. In these sutras Nanak has shown the method of removing the attention from the five senses.

Now let us try to understand the sutras:

Dhyana, attention, is the one guru of the five senses. If you remain scattered among the five you are misled, but if you catch hold of the one you will arrive.

Looking at a woman grinding wheat, Kabir said: 'No one can remain whole between the two slabs of the millstone. Kabir was telling his disciples that he who is caught in the millstone of duality is similarly ground to bits and cannot be saved.

Kabir's son said of this: But there is something else in the millstone - the middle shaft. What if someone were to hold on to that?"

In his next couplet Kabir refers to this shaft, saying that he who takes refuge in it, he who seeks protection by holding on to the one amidst the two grinders, cannot be ground by them.

Whether you say two, like Kabir, or five like Nanak, or nine, or infinite, the meandering routes are many but the destination is one. On whatever path you choose to wander, the method of passing through will be specific for this path. Nanak's method means that when you eat you must be aware of your attention: the food is going in, various tastes are forming in the mouth, so experience it all with careful attention. If you taste your food attentively you will find that eventually the taste fades away and only attention remains. Attention and observation form a blazing fire which turns taste to ashes.

While seeing a beautiful flower, observe very attentively and you will find that the flower is gone and only observation remains. The flower is like a dream, attention is eternal.

When you see a beautiful woman and observe her without getting lost in a maze of thoughts, you will soon find that she is no more - like a line drawn on water - and only attention remains. If you thus remain alert and attentive with each of your senses, the forms of the senses fade away and the formless alone emerges. Once a person arrives at this dhyana, nothing can destroy it.

Nanak says there is only one master of the five senses, and that is attention. All the five senses, like five rivers, pour their waters into this very dhyana.

Psychologists also study this phenomenon: eyes see, ears listen, hands touch, the nose smells; but neither eyes nor ears nor hands nor nose can perform these tasks on their own. Then who is it that joins them all?

Someone is speaking, you are listening as well as looking. But how can you be sure that the person you are seeing is the same one you are hearing? Eyes and ears are different from each other. One indicates that it can see someone; the other indicates that it can hear someone. But how do you connect both of these? Who is it who combines the two experiences and conveys to us that they refer to the same person?

There must be a common ground where all the senses combine their experience: the visions sent by the eyes, the sounds sent by the ears, the smells gathered by the nose, the touch felt by the hand.

It is the focusing of attention that provides the common point determining the experience. Were it not so, life would be very jumbled and confused. You could never be sure whether you are seeing the same person who is talking, and whether the odors you smell also come from him. You would be broken into bits if there were not one to unite the five. All five paths must meet somewhere where their experiences are collected. This place is dhyana, attention.

Nanak says that attention is the guru of these five, who are disciples; but you have made gurus out of the disciples and forgotten the guru. You have turned the servants into masters and have no knowledge of the master at all. You heed your senses and don't give any thought to attention. You have completely forgotten that the senses are only superficial extensions of attention and you do not know what lies deep within.

If you want to lead a truly beautiful life, do not listen to the senses, because they are incomplete and only land you in trouble. In most cases people are slaves to one sense or the other. Some are mad after the sense of taste - food, food and food - they can think of nothing else. It is said about emperor Nero that he was a fiend for food. It was not just that he ate many times a day, but he kept on eating all day. Doctors were attending him permanently to make him vomit after each meal so that he could eat again.

You might say that he was mad, but this kind of madness exists more or less in all people. Some are addicted to sight - looking out for beautiful faces, beautiful bodies, even if they suffer in the process.

They are slaves to their eyes.

You are blind if you are a slave to your eyes, becausethe authentic seeing organ is not the eye, which is merely a window. The one who looks out from this window is someone else. Do not ask questions of the window, but ask the one who peeps through it. People who are addicted to sounds and smells or to adorning the body, who are lost in music, or have the perversion of touching are all mad after their senses, and have accepted their slaves to be their masters. Listen rather to the owner who is the master within, becauseonce he departs, the senses lie useless.

In 1910 the King of Kashi had to be operated on for appendicitis. Since the king had taken a vow not to partake of anything that induced unconsciousness, he refused any anesthesia. The doctors were in a dilemma, since the operation was absolutely imperative and so also the anesthesia. They tried to explain to him that it was a matter of opening his abdomen, but he persisted and asked only to be allowed to read the Gita while they operated, and that was enough. The doctors had to give in because delay in operating could be fatal. The king read the Gita throughout the operation, and when it was all over the incredulous doctors asked didn't he feel any pain. He said, "I was so engrossed in my Gita, I was not aware of what was happening."

You only know a thing when you apply your mind to it; you see only what you want to see. When your attention is diverted, everything changes. You are unaware of things that you really want to avoid. If you wander through the market, you will see only those things that interest you: a cobbler will concentrate on leather goods, a jeweler will have eyes only for diamonds. You only see those things that are illumined by your attention. All else remains in darkness.

The most profound art of living is to attain mastery over attention. If you are flowing towards God the world will be lost to you, and it is for this reason that sages call the world maya, an illusion.

Maya does not mean that the world does not exist. It exists very much, but sages discovered that as their awareness flows Godward, the world fades from perception. And where awareness is not, the existence or nonexistence of that place becomes irrelevant. Existence is born in the act of perception. It fades when the attention is withdrawn.

The sages say: God is truth, the world is non-truth. Does this mean that the world we see around us is not there in actuality? It is very much there, but the sage no longer perceives it. If you are greedy wealth is real to you; when greed is gone, riches become like clay. Wealth is not wealth because of itself - but because of your perceptions. Or, with sensuousness the body becomes very significant; without sensuousness it becomes secondary.

Existence shifts with attention; it manifests only in the path of attention. Once you understand this you become your own master. Having discovered the master within, you no longer obey your servants, the disciples, becausewhat is the sense in asking those who do not know themselves?

Now you follow and do the bidding of the master within.

Nanak says one alone, dhyana, is the guru of the five. On the superficial level dhyana means attention; on the deeper level dhyana refers to meditation. It is meditation that leads to discovery of the master within. There is nothing more profound - nothing deeper - than meditation, so ponder over it and make no casual passing remarks about something so significant. But people are such that they talk about attention and meditation without any direct knowledge. People who do not know in themselves enjoy talking just for the sake of talking and they cause a great deal of confusion in the world.

We are experimenting with hundreds of different methods of meditation. Someone came to me saying so-and-so asked what is this thing that you are doing? Do you call that meditation? I told him to ask his friend whether he knows what meditation is, and if he does, to learn from him. For the question is not whether you learn from me or from someone else; the aim is to learn meditation. He went back and asked his friend, who replied that he had no experience with meditation and didn't know what it is. Now this same gentleman is very eager to advise his friend on what meditation is not. Not knowing himself what it is, he is ready to give his opinions. So irresponsible are we!

Nanak says ponder well before you speak. Be fully aware and say only if you know yourself. The world has gone astray not because of ignorant people, but because of those all wise and all knowing people who really know nothing, yet love to talk and advise others. Not being conscious of what they are doing, or why, they are just a plague with their opinions and views.

It is not difficult to gather fools around you; you have only to start speaking and continue speaking, no matter what. In a few days you will have gathered a whole band of followers, becausethere are always people more stupid than you in this world. To find disciples all you need is a little madness in you, some arrogance, and the strength to speak your loudest, and people will flock around you. As people begin to hang around you, many happenings will be attributed to you. The very people who are in total darkness, never having known the light, get caught in your trap when you begin to speak on light; because they feel there is certainly something in you.

Also, people are very imaginative: whatever they wish to happen, they begin to imagine. When the process of imagination begins, dreams are born. If someone imagines his kundalini rising, he may begin to see light or see colors, and when this happens, faith increases in the man who proclaims himself the guru. That is why we find so many gurus.

I know many such gurus who have no knowledge of meditation. When they meet me in private their question is the same: How does one meditate? What is meditation? And these persons have followings of thousands!

Nanak says whatever you say with regard to meditation, you must ponder well before you utter, becauseit is like playing with fire. Nothing could be more subtle, nor more valuable. The path that leads from the mundane world to God, the supreme spirit, is very thin and fine. You have to contemplate a great deal before you venture to express your thoughts.

"Do I know myself? Have I the experience?" If each person in this world were to take a vow to speak only of that which he has knowledge, all deceptions and misconceptions would end. When man is ready to acknowledge his ignorance of things he does not know and realize that he has no right to talk on such matters, then life will become simple and it will not be so difficult to realize truth.

But there is so much untruth all around, such a network of deception and false gurudom that you will not be able to find a true satguru, a perfect master. You will not come across a true Nanak, becausethere are so many impostors vying to be gurus. How can you discern among them? There are no criteria to go by.

Therefore Nanak says speak only after great deliberation, and only after you have known and experienced directly. Don't play with the life of others. This is exactly what you are doing when you advise others on things you are ignorant of yourself. There is no sin greater than misleading a person from the path of knowledge. Theft, murder, deception are nothing compared to it. When you steal you only deprive someone of some earthly possessions, which is hardly of any consequence.

When you kill a person you deprive him of his body, but there is no shortage, since new bodies are obtained; you merely snatch the covering, not the atman. When you deceive someone what do you gain by it? Something very paltry, nothing of value.

But if you pose as a guru and lead your disciples along paths you have no idea of yourself, you can cause them to wander for endless lives. There can be no deception greater than this, no sin more heinous. There is no greater sinner than an ignorant guru.

Remember, a person can wander from guru to guru and, finding them worthless, his faith is shaken and his hope is lost. He begins to feel that there is nothing but hoax and hypocrisy in the name of religion. When ninety-nine out of one hundred are hypocrites how can one trust the one who is genuine? Such a person, even if he meets a satguru, a Nanak, will invariably be very wary of him, naturally suspecting him to be like the others.

A major reason behind much of the rank atheism in the world is the prevalence of false gurus.

Atheism is not an outcome of science as is generally believed, nor does it get its impetus from the atheist philosophers. People have lost faith because of the impostors who masquerade as gurus.

It is no longer possible to convince them that there is someone like a genuine master. They also refuse to believe that there is a power that is God.

When the gurus are fakes, how can God be true? This God, and these methods and practices, are merely devices to exploit gullible people - such is the experience of seekers, good people who have been so badly misled.

Thus Nanak exhorts us to speak only after due contemplation becauseit is like playing with fire, like laying a wager on other people's lives. Think well before you speak or else hold your peace.

How can we say anything about God? For He has no beginning, no end, nor any limit. The only thing we can possibly do is to be silent about Him. What will you say? What can you say about Him?

What can you say in connection with meditation? Then give it great deliberation and thought.

Understand that meditation is the method; and God, paramatma, is at the completion of the experience, the knowledge. You may be able to say something about the path if you have traversed it, but nothing about the destination, which is boundless; it has no limits, no direction. I cannot tell you what God is but I can certainly tell you how I have reached Him; the path can be spoken about.

Buddha has said that a buddha can only give a hint and show the path, nothing more. Nanak has said again and again: I am only a physician who can prescribe the medicine. I know nothing about health. The doctor's knowledge is confined only to the treatment of a certain ailment; his medicine cures the disease but he has no knowledge of health, the well-being which fills a person with joy and gratefulness when the illness is gone - he knows nothing about that!

Whatever is spoken about God can only be negative. At most we can say, "He is not this... He is not that...." As soon as you say, "He is this," you confine Him within a boundary; becauseonly that which bears an outline, a boundary, can be pointed out. The limitless cannot be pointed out. Therefore Nanak says, you can say nothing about God; therefore it is best to keep silent about Him.

But nowhere in the world do we find people silent on the subject of God. In fact it is a constant topic of heated discussion. There are seminars and meetings where pundits debate on the existence or nonexistence of God. Busily proving their points, no one worries about the fact that God cannot be proved, much less disproved. God can be known, He can be lived. We can become God, but He cannot be proved nor disproved.

How will you prove that God is? Whatever you say of Him will be wrong - absurd and wide of the mark. Or how will you prove that God is not? That will also have to be absurd and irrelevant.

Whatever you say about Him can only be absurdly incomplete, because God is the totality, the whole.

The vast space that spreads all around you and far out into infinity is referred to in that simple word God. God is not a person sitting somewhere on high - God is an experience of being drowned, of being bathed in divinity, of being lost in it. God is a state in which you no longer are, and yet you are very much there.

It is a strange and wonderful contradiction; on the one hand you are absolutely annihilated, and on the other hand you are a perfect whole, the ultimate perfection! So God is neither an individual nor a conception nor a hypothesis. God is an experience, the ultimate experience! It is such an experience that you are absorbed in it completely, so lost that there is no one to return and speak about it.

So, says Nanak, nothing can be said about him. Only something can be said about meditation - but that too only if you have experienced it, and after due contemplation. Make it a rule for yourself to speak only of that which you know, and this small rule can transform your life. Forget about the rest of the world; worry only about yourself and don't budge from this rule.

We love to exaggerate. Say we know an inch of something, we want to give a mile's worth of information about it. We know only a grain and we set out to discuss a mountainful. The state of mind is a state of exaggeration, becausethe ego revels in overstatements.

Mulla Nasruddin fell down on the road. He became unconscious and was taken to a hospital. When he was placed on the operating table, they found a piece of paper in his pocket on which was written in large letters: "I suffer from epileptic fits. Please do not operate on me for appendicitis. My appendix has already been removed many times."

The mind elaborates with great zest and alacrity. It gets a great kick out of it. A slight knowledge of something and you begin to elaborate, adding spice and color; and the more you color the falser your knowledge becomes till ultimately the essence is lost and only the color remains.

Always say proportionately less of what you know and that will harm no one. Beware of the urge to exaggerate. And this holds good not only in talking about god, but also about meditation, about life and existence. For existence is vast; whatever you have known of it is but an infinitesimal part, not enough to give you the authority to pontificate.

For instance, you are a shopkeeper. You have known only your shop, whereas existence is a vast thing in which there are infinite ways of living. You have not known life in its entirety. While there are thousands of shops dealing in thousands of things, you have only dealt in one particular kind of goods. Even as a shopkeeper you can at most claim to know only one kind of shop, and of the thousands of customers, you can claim to have known but a few; that is the sum total of your experience - a mere grain.

Newton has said, "People think I know a great deal. My own feeling is that the knowledge I have attained is like one grain of sand on the seashore. This one grain is my knowledge, whereas my ignorance is as much as the remaining grains on the shore!"

Direct your attention to what you do not know, what is as yet left to be known. This will make you humble; whereas if you concentrate only on what you know, your back will become stiff with arrogance, as your ego is strengthened. Always concentrate on what is yet to be known, what is yet to be experienced. There you will find endless vistas of knowledge yet to be explored and you will feel the futility of keeping count of the knowledge of things you know; becauseit will look ludicrous, almost nothing!

Therefore Socrates says: When the sage attains the supreme knowledge he finds there is only one thing that remains to be known - that I know nothing! This is the characteristic of a sage: he knows he knows nothing.

Therefore Nanak says to keep within limits, be simple, be humble. Say only what you know and, on the subject of God ,hold your peace! For what can you say about him? Whatever you say can be no more than gossip. Can an ant speak of the ocean? Who are you to prove His existence or nonexistence? Who has appointed you the judge? Does God depend on your arguments to make Him or break Him?

Keshav Chandra came to visit Ramakrishna to debate on the existence or nonexistence of God.

He elaborated many points to prove that God does not exist. As Ramakrishna listened his heart thrilled with joy. He embraced him lovingly and said, "You have been very kind to come to me, a simple villager. I have never witnessed such magnificent intelligence, and looking at you now I am thoroughly convinced that there can be no greater proof that God is. How can a flower like you ever bloom if it were not for Him?"

Keshav Chandra had come expressly to prove that God is not. His arguments were very lucid and clear, his reasoning so subtle. Such a great logician and genius is born only once in a thousand years. Though it was very difficult to answer him, Ramakrishna did not put forth even a single counter-argument! Ramakrishna was so filled with love and delight at the sight of Keshav Chandra, and was so genuinely convinced thereby of the fact of God's existence that Keshav Chandra was struck dumb by his pure ecstasy. Ramakrishna told him, "That you exist is proof that the world is not just material. If such a process of intelligence can be, if reasoning can be so subtle, then this world is not of matter alone; it is not as gross as the stone; there surely is a consciousness hidden within it. For me, your very being has proved that God is."

Keshav Chandra returned home and wrote in his diary that this man had won over him. It is difficult to defeat a religious man who offers no arguments. You can only defeat a person who reasons and argues, where all that is required is to be a better debater, a cleverer speaker.

A religious man gives you no ground for a debate when he refuses to compete with you. He says:

I believe in God. I have faith in God. I have no opinion or decisions to make about Him. God is my feeling, not my thought. God is in my heart and not in my head. And the heart keeps silent. A religious man is always silent when questioned about God. Ask him about meditation and he will speak, but only as much as he knows directly.

People in ancient times were honest. There is a beautiful story in connection with Buddha's search for truth. For six years Buddha had gone from guru to guru. After each guru taught him all that he knew, he would move on to another. Then the moment came when Buddha knew all that the gurus knew. Buddha asked the last guru, "What shall I do now?"

"I have taught you all that I know," said the guru. "You will have to look for someone else."

This last guru of Buddha was Alar-Kalam. As Buddha took leave of him Alar-Kalam said, "I have revealed all knowledge that I have attained and have no more to give. Go forth and seek another who can direct you further, but do not forget to impart that knowledge also to me!"

This is the reason that many people of the past attained wisdom, for honesty was a part of their nature. In today's world who worries about honesty? If you can put forth your arguments impressively, it doesn't matter whether you really know what you are talking about, because people are bound to flock around you. It is a matter of how you advertise yourself, like any marketable commodity. If you advertise well, if you succeed in awakening the passion and the greed of the people, you are bound to attract a formidable clientele. It is so easy to become such a guru!

Therefore Nanak says to be very careful what you say about meditation, because it is religion that supports the earth. By even a few right or wrong statements you can upset the lives of thousands of people; one wrong statement can sow confusion for endless births. Religion is not a small matter; it is the basis of your life, the support of all existence. Only speak what you truly know about religion. To develop a false conception of religion is to lose all that supports and maintains your being. Religion upholds and maintains the earth. It arises out of compassion and pity, and the establishment of contentment forms its equilibrium.

Let the following lines go deep within you:

Religion is the basis of all life, of all existence. Without it existence cannot hold together; the world would fall apart. It is the foundation on which stands the mansion of existence. All else is like the other building materials, like bricks, mortar, cement. Religion is the foundation, the innate quality of our nature. It is in the very nature of fire to give heat; without heat there cannot be a fire. It is the nature of the sun to give light; if it does not it will no longer be the sun, it will have lost its quality, its innate character, its dharma.

Jesus often said: If salt loses its quality of saltiness, how can you make it salty again? There is no way. Anything that loses its intrinsic quality is no longer that thing; it was what it was because of its very nature, its quality.

The sun is the sun because it gives light; fire is fire because it gives heat. And man is man because of meditation - that is his nature! The person who loses the quality to meditate is a person in name only. Though he still looks like a human being he is actually an animal, because he lives like an animal. We never criticize an animal who lives according to its nature. We never tell the dog he is behaving like a dog; that has no meaning to him. But we sometimes tell a person he is behaving like a dog or, "Don't be an ass!"

We can say this to a human being because he is not an actual human being unless he becomes properly established in meditation; that is his natural self. A Buddha, a Kabir, a Nanak are proper human beings. But the bulk of humanity has fallen so low that we call such special people avatara, 'incarnates'. Naturally we do not look upon them as human beings, for then what are we? We would have to rate ourselves lower, but to maintain that we are human beings, we have to create a special place for them just a little above us, that of the incarnate. It solves our problem, to call them godlike - no, gods - and remain human beings ourselves. But we are not human beings.

Manushya means man. It contains the root mana, which means mind. The words must be understood. When a person is deeply established in meditation, he becomes manushya, because consciousness and awareness as a higher state of mind is the nature of man. When you attain your own consciousness, you find that it is the portal to the consciousness of all of existence. So the only way for man to reach God is to discover the innermost basis of his own nature.

Religion is the support, the nature, the basis of all life. It is the son of compassion. Establish contentment and the equilibrium is established.

Compassion, contentment are two very valuable words, because the whole life of the seeker can be contained within them. Contentment within and compassion without must be balanced on the scales. Be always satisfied within your own self and ever-compassionate towards others, never contentment based on others nor compassion for one's own self.

Understand that we do just the opposite. We see a man dying of hunger, or lying on the streets writhing with pain, and we say: Life is as it should be. You have to take it as it comes. Though we may have been taught that contentment is the satisfaction that things are as they should be, we misuse it. It should be contentment in what one has, but compassion for others. On the other hand, if I know that I am where I should be, and there is no need whatever to change, that whatever fate has given me is enough, then I am satisfied and fulfilled as I am.

Unrest and turbulence follows in the wake of dissatisfaction: when I feel things are not happening as I would wish them to happen, that I am not as I should be; that I have not been given what I am worthy of receiving; that God does not seem to be pleased with me; that there is some injustice; that I am not appreciated as I should be; that I definitely deserve more fame, more wealth... as soon as these thoughts of dissatisfaction begin to gather in your mind, you will feel the lack of things and your restlessness begins. Your mind will concentrate on all that you do not have and see only insufficiency and misery.

When there is satisfaction towards one's self, then you begin to feel and notice all that you have.

And when you begin to realize all that you have, you are filled with thanks and gratefulness towards Him who has given you so much, thinking surely I don't deserve all of this!

CONTENTMENT TOWARDS ONESELF, and COMPASSION TOWARDS OTHERS. You must do whatever is possible for you to do for others - and more; give happiness and peace, whether they receive it from you or not, and don't worry or be discontented on that account - it is your own affair.

So keep it to yourself if you tried your best and could not relieve a person of his pain or suffering.

Let it not dishearten you; don't reproach yourself, but maintain your contentment.

But we tend to become contented about the lot of others and sympathize with ourselves. This is what has happened in India and caused its downfall, this is why India is poor, sick and miserable.

Where others are concerned we say, God's will. But where we ourselves are concerned, we are not prepared to take what comes to us and fight to the bitter end. There we do not say: God's will.

Self-centeredness and selfishness lead us to proclaim: "Thy will be done! - as long as He has made me wealthy and the other poor. "Whatever is written in our destiny we get" - as long as I am the master and others are slaves. We are without pity for the lot of the destitute, having wasted all our feelings of compassion on ourselves.

The words compassion and contentment are priceless; only change their direction and they become dangerous. If we are satisfied with our own lot we enjoy infinite peace and tranquility in life; we become wholly fulfilled. If we can be compassionate and sympathetic towards others, we shall wipe out poverty and misery. Kindness and compassion develop into a sense of service to others that fills you with prayer and worship, because it then becomes the path that leads to God.

If you are kind to others but dissatisfied with your own self, you will end up a social worker; you will never become religious. If you are satisfied with yourself but have no compassion for others, you become a lifeless holy man. Having lost all that is precious and meaningful in life, such people run away to the jungles. They are satisfied with their own selves but without an iota of compassion.

They succeed in finding their own happiness but they are the ultra-selfish people. If you look into their eyes there is no sign of pity, only a ruthless stare.

Ask the Jain muni, who is busy accomplishing his own self-contentment, "What of kindness and sympathy for others?" "We all have to reap the fruits of our actions. What can I do about it?" he will reply. While he is cultivating his own satisfaction, his sadhana is incomplete; there is no balance.

Look at a Christian missionary. He cultivates compassion and kindness: he does not mind the jungles, or the Adavasis, the poor primitive tribal man whom he serves with such fanatical zeal; no work is too mean for him. But he is dissatisfied within himself.

All these people are incomplete: the Christian missionary has compassion, the Jain Muni is self- contented, but there is no balance. If one side of the scales is heavier than the other, because of this lack of equilibrium, the instrument of existence cannot be tuned to resonate with the divine melody.

So Nanak says:

He who embodies both compassion and contentment - in their right proportion and the right direction - attains the supreme comprehension of life. He will then know what religion is; he becomes truth incarnate. The ideal is: satisfaction within and compassion without; meditation within, love and kindness without.

Buddha describes a similar ideal utilizing the words compassion and wisdom: wisdom within, compassion without. Until such time that both of these are present, whatever the knowledge, it can only be false. The lack of either leaves knowledge incomplete.

By merely being compassionate to others you do not reach anywhere; you have to do something within yourself also. No matter how many difficulties you endure to serve the downtrodden and the sick, if you do not cultivate contemplation within, awaken your remembrance and meditate, you can reach nowhere. If you have not found the One within the five senses, you yourself are still an ill person.

Just as you walk on two feet and birds need two wings to fly, just as you need two eyes to get a proper view of the world that surrounds you, so in exactly the same manner you need two wings for the ultimate journey. Nanak calls them compassion and contentment.

Scientists acknowledge that there are at least fifty thousand worlds within the limits of their discoveries, and how many more beyond these? Life does not exist on this planet alone but probably on tens of thousands of other planets. How can you perceive an expanse so enormous with your limited mind? You will have to put it aside.

As soon as the mind becomes silent the window falls away and you find yourself under the open skies. Then you begin to see how vast the expanse of existence is, how infinite! And when you realize the exquisite glory of existence, you wonder why you were lost in feeble nothings all this while: someone abused you, someone insulted you, a thorn pricked your foot or you had a headache - such is the story of your life! While the magnificent phenomenon of existence is taking place every moment around you, you are involved in futile matters. Your calculations were all of the wrong kind; while infinite wealth was raining around, you were counting shells.

As soon as you step aside from your silly involvements you will see your present state. It is as if it were raining rubies and diamonds outside while you have shut yourself inside your house, holding your rubble and stones tight against your chest for fear you might lose them.

Where in your thoughts do you abide? What engages your attention? What discussions and arguments are going on within you? If you examine these you will find them very petty and insignificant, so trivial as to be unworthy of any consideration, but you have wasted all your life in them.

And Nanak says: When the mind is set aside, when you are in the no-mind state and the sound of Omkar begins to vibrate within you, you begin to witness the glory of existence, its vastness; you see the infinite life, the overflowing boundless nectar, the limitless beauty and the unaccountable power that has no beginning, no end. All this you see when you enter His court. And then you realize you can never even imagine such vast existence o guess at its wonderful taste. But alas, how foolishly we are frittering away all chance of this wonderful experience.

Nanak asks: How shall I think about it? It is to stand dumbfounded, the eyes filled with surprise and wonder. The trouble is we never lift our eyes upwards, having kept them firmly focused on the pebbles and stones.

How is one to think of nature? Even if I offer myself in sacrifice a thousand times it is but a paltry gesture. And how shall I repay the limitless phenomena that happen every moment, the infinite nectar that showers incessantly? I cannot, I cannot, even if I offer myself on the sacrificial fire a thousand times. Such a feeling of gratefulness is born; and such thanksgiving is the real prayer.

The words Nanak uses in prayer are priceless: "What pleases You, O Lord, is best for me." Thy will be done! In such moments your desires and wishes will drop off and there will be only one prayer on your lips: O Lord, do not fulfill my wishes; let only Your will be done! For whatever you ask is bound to be mean and insignificant. Children always ask for toys and foolish people ask for foolish things.

Then you will say to Him: Let not my desires be gratified, O Lord, because what you have ordained is best for me. Who am I to decide what should be and what should not? Whatever You will is always the best. What does not come to pass is surely not for my good. There is only one criterion, one proof - whatever You will is forever the best. You are the formless, the almighty, the birthless one!

The Lord is forever. It is I who exist at specific times and become nonexistent at others. My being is like a bubble of water. He is the ocean. I am a wave. And what can a wave ask? It lives but for a moment, then how can its desires be real? The last words of Jesus are truly priceless - Thy will be done, O Lord!

Doubt raised its ugly head even within the mind of Jesus when he was being hung on the cross.

At the very moment that the nails were being hammered into his limbs and the blood began to flow there was a moment - just a single moment that is so very valuable because it demonstrates how weak man is. All of humanity manifested its complete helplessness through Jesus. And Jesus said in that moment, "What are You showing me? What is this You are doing unto me, O Lord?"

The question arose, and though Jesus did not really doubt his Lord, even so there is a slight suggestion of doubt. It is a very personal question which Jesus asks, "What is this You wish to show me?" And doubt lurks behind the question. One thing is certain, that Jesus was not happy about what was taking place. He did not approve of the cross, the hammering of nails. Something was happening which should not be happening.

So it is a complaint, all right; and the complaints of all humanity manifested in the words of Jesus.

You will also experience these moments in your own life when all your faith will be shaken and your mind will cry out, "What is happening?" You will doubt the bona fides of God; you placed so much faith in Him and is this the result? But this in itself proves that you have not trusted Him wholly; or else you would accept whatever happened. If your acceptance bears even a little hesitation within, it is not perfect acceptance. If you accept complainingly, your acceptance is incomplete; your faith must be wholehearted - whatever He wishes.

But Jesus pulled himself together. For just one single moment the entire race of mankind trembled through Jesus, for only one moment, then Jesus raised his head and said, "Thy will be done, O Lord!

Thy will, not mine." At that moment the man faded and Christ was born. Jesus disappeared and Christ manifested in his place. So small is the distance between Jesus and Christ, the distance of a single moment. How great a difference lies between ignorance and knowledge, between Buddha and you, between Nanak and you! No matter how high you ascend, one fear always nags at your heart - is my wish being gratified? The devotee also always keeps an eye on God: is He doing his bidding? If not, he complains. No matter how tender the words he uses, a complaint is a complaint, and the thorn keeps pricking within.

The perfect devotee has no complaints; his confidence in Him is complete: Whatever You will is best for me. You are my protection. You are the eternal, the formless, the almighty. I am but a wave; where is there any question of my will? Thy will be done. Thy will is my will. The wave's desire cannot be different from the ocean; the leaf's desire cannot be different from the tree; the limb's desire cannot be different from the body's. In this manner one should let go of one's self like a drop in the ocean.

However, this is possible only when you discover the One behind the five. As you are now, you do not exist; then whom shall you seek? Right now you are so divided within yourself that there is a crowd within, not one whole integrated individual. Then how will you take the jump when some parts are going right and some left, and others in other directions? You do not exist as one individual.

Scattered in many fragments, your being has no meaning.

So the first thing Nanak says is: Seek the One behind the five - seek attention, awareness, meditation! And the second thing is: As meditation grows stronger, let there be contentment within, compassion without. As compassion firmly takes root, contentment will become more profound, and you will experience the dawning of the feeling of gratitude and thanksgiving, and you will say, "Thy way, not mine, O Lord!" This is the ultimate, the culmination of perfection.