Solving the Riddle

Sahib, the Lord, is the name given by Nanak to God. We can write about God in two ways. The way of the philosophers is to talk about God, but their words are dry and without love. Their words are intellectual and lack emotion completely.

The other is the way of the devotee. His words are juicy; he looks upon God not as a doctrine, but as a relationship. Unless there is a relationship the heart is not influenced. We can call God truth but what the word Lord conveys can never be conveyed by truth. How can we establish a relationship with truth? What would be the bridge that would connect truth to our heart?

The Lord is a loving relationship. The Lord immediately becomes the beloved and now we can be related; the way is open. The devotee longs for something that he can touch, something he can dance around, sing around. The devotee wants a place to lay his head. Lord is such a beautiful, lovable name. It means: the master, the owner. Thus the relationship can be of many kinds.

The Sufis look upon God as the beloved, so the seeker becomes a lover. The Hindus, the Jews and the Christians have spoken of God as the father, so the seeker becomes a child. Nanak saw God as the lord and master so the seeker becomes a servant.

It needs to be understood that for each relationship the path is different. With the beloved we stand as equals: neither is higher, nor lower. The relationship between a father and son is a relationship of circumstances: because we are born in a particular household, so the relationship. Since, given the opportunity we ourselves would like to be the master and make God the servant, the role of servant best serves to obliterate the ego. The ego does not disappear either in the father-son relationship or the lover-beloved relationship; it can only drop away in the master-servant relationship.

And this is the most difficult relationship, because it is the state which is exactly the opposite of ego.

Ego believes: I am the master, all existence is my slave. The devotee says: All existence is my master, I am the slave. And this is the authentic yoga headstand - not literally standing on one's head: you must let the ego touch the ground, because the ego is the actual head. Therefore it is the servant - the devotee - who practices the real headstand. He turns upside down. As you have observed the world through the eyes of a master, it is different from the world you see when you develop the servant attitude.

When a beggar begs from you, is there a chord struck within you which builds a relationship between you? No, just the opposite is the case. As soon as he asks, you shrink within; then even if you give, it is done unwillingly. You make a mental note not to pass that place again. When someone asks something of you, you pull back and want to withhold; when a person does not ask, you feel more like giving.

Try to understand yourself a little and the way towards God will become clear. When someone asks, you do not want to give, because his asking seems like an act of aggression. All demands are aggressive. But when nobody makes demands on you, you become lighter and you give more easily.

Buddha had told his monks that when they went to the village to obtain alms, they were not to beg.

They could only go and stand at a door; if there was no response they should move on.

This is the difference between a begging monk and a beggar. We have honored certain begging monks as we have never honored our kings; whereas beggars remain last in our minds. We barely hold them worthy of insult and try to avoid them. The monks asked, "How will people give if we do not ask?" Buddha replied, "Things are easily obtained in this world merely by not asking." As soon as you ask, you constrict the other and create difficulty for yourself. When you do not ask you make others eager to give.

You will find this story hidden in all life's relationships. Your wife asks for something, and giving becomes difficult. If you do get it for her, it is halfheartedly, only to ward off a quarrel. It arises not out of a bond of love, but as a way to maintain peace in the household. If the wife never makes demands you feel like giving her something. Giving is possible when not asked.

You are separated from God by your demands. All your prayers consist of: Give me! Give me!You want God to serve you. You wish to use Him as a servant. You say, "My foot pains. Take away the pain... My financial condition is bad, improve it." You say, "The wife is ill, make her well," or "I have lost my job, give me another." You always stand a beggar at His door. Your very asking shows you consider yourself the master whom God is to serve. Are your needs so important that you press even God into your service?

If God is the master and you are the slave then what is left of the demands? The most amazing thing was that you kept asking, and He kept on giving. It is not that you are refused when you ask - you keep on getting; but the more you get this way, as you keep on asking for more and more, the further away from Him you become.

A demand can never be a prayer. A desire can never be a prayer. A longing can never be worship.

The essence of prayer is to offer thanksgiving and not ask for handouts. He has already given enough - more than necessary, more than we deserve. The cup is full to the brim and already overflowing.

The genuine devotee offers thanks, his prayer is full of gratitude, saying: "You have given me so much, I am not fit to receive it all." And at the other extreme, there you stand: "See the injustice, I deserve more: I want more!"

Nanak says people keep on asking, and He keeps on giving. Yet there is no end to their asking. He keeps giving, and the beggars keep asking. If you are constantly asking, when will you pray? When will your worship begin? If you fulfill one desire ten others take its place. For how many births have you thus been asking? And you are still not full!

You can never be satisfied, because it is not the mind's nature to be full; its essential quality is to be unsatisfied. Only when one is rid of the mind, does satisfaction appear. You will never find a man who can say that his mind is satisfied. If you ever happen to hear someone say that, look deep into him because he is sure not to have a mind.

What is the mind but a collection of all your demands: "Give, give and give more...." There is no greater beggar than the mind, caring not how much we receive. Even Alexander the Great was a beggar, no better than any beggar soliciting by the side of the road. It is necessary to understand the nature of the mind.

How can the mind pray, for prayer is a state of no-mind? The whole viewpoint is changed as soon as you put the mind aside. It means you have come for thanksgiving and not begging. Reintroduce the mind and you feel you don't have enough, you need more. Mind keeps its eyes on the absence of things. Abolish the mind and you begin to see existence.

It is like this: take a man who sees only thorns to a rosebush. He begins counting the thorns and does not even look at the flower. Try your utmost, he will not notice the flower. Where there are so many thorns, what worth is a simple flower? And be very careful. Don't touch the flower. It might be thorns in disguise!

Who can refute his argument? If his heart has been pricked by a thousand thorns, he is naturally afraid of them, and he is bound not to trust in flowers either. He will take them to be an illusion, a trick to deceive him, a dream. Who could see the flower amongst such a plethora of thorns?

Now if you take into account only the flowers - lost among them, and filled with their touch, and their scent - another state is born in you. Then you think: "Where there are such lovely flowers how can there be thorns! And the few there are, are only there to protect the flowers and help them to bloom.

And it is God's will that they should exist too. Perhaps the flowers could not be without horns; they are the protectors to save the flowers from all harm."

And as your attention to the flower increases, you will realize that the same sap flows in the thorns as in the flowers. Therefore how could there be conflict between the two? The mind tends to concentrate on the thorns; it turns its attention to what is not, to where the fault is, the complaint, the failing. It has an eye for dissatisfaction, nonfulfillment. What is left but to make demands? So a man filled with the mind goes to a temple to ask; he is a beggar.

If you set the mind aside a little, you begin to see more and more flowers; you attain to the power and the joy of life. So much have you received from the very beginning what source is there for complaint? And if He who has given so much has kept something back, there must be a reason for it. Perhaps you are not yet prepared to receive it, or lack the worthiness.

Anything that comes before its time brings suffering rather than joy. Everything has its own time to ripen. When you have ripened God will give. Infinite are His ways of giving; thousands are His hands, spread in all directions - raining bounty on one and all!

The Hindu concept of God is a thousand-armed being. This concept is full of love. They say: "He gives with a thousand hands, not just two! You will not be able to hold His gifts because you have only two. He gives with a thousand hands - but at the right time, so wait for the moment without complaint - and His grace begins to rain in torrents."

Nanak says even when they sing the Lord's praise they do not fail to ask, and the Lord keeps on giving. But these blind people see not, and still clamor for more. While His grace pours down on them, they wail endlessly that they are thirsty, as if they have fallen in love with their suffering!

This is very significant. Nanak says God has given so much, there is nothing left to be asked for.

When complaints fall away and you are filled with gratitude, you wonder what you should take as a love-offering to His feet.

What shall we offer at His court? What shall we place before His feet when we express our thanksgiving? How shall we worship, how shall we adore Him? You take flowers, pluck them from bushes - His bushes. They were better off on the plant, still living. You plucked them and killed them. You kill His flowers and offer them at His feet - and you are not ashamed? What can you give Him - everything is His!

When you spend your money to build a church or mosque, what are you doing? You are returning to Him His own things, and yet you are filled with pride. You say, "I built the temple. I fed so many poor. I distributed so many clothes." You give so little, yet you become arrogant.

What does this show but that you have not understood? Returning a little bit of the infinite gifts you receive from above is not a matter of pride. Yet you go to offer the gift and you are not even ashamed!

"What will you put before Him?" Nanak asks. How shall we approach - with what - so that we can see His courts, and can come near Him? What shall we put before Him - rice dipped in saffron, flowers from the market, wealth, treasures - what?

No! No gift will serve the purpose. To understand that everything is His, is enough. The gift is accepted! As long as you feel something belongs to you, you think of offering something. As long as you consider yourself the master you may give if you like, but you err. Anything you may offer - your whole kingdom - is nothing. For everything is His, even you are His! Whatever you have earned, whatever you have gathered is all His play.

Nanak says, What shall we do to stand in Your court, to stand in Your presence? To look into each other's eyes? When you come to understand that everything is already His, there is no need to take anything. The flowers on the tree are already an offering to Him; everything stands offered at His lotus feet - even the sun and the moon and the stars. What will your miserable lamps do before the orb of the sun? Open your eyes and see that all of existence stands offered at His feet. This exactly is the meaning of the word master. He is the master of all, everything stands as an offering to Him.

So Nanak says, What are we to give? This is Nanak's question: What language shall we speak, hearing which, He may love us? What shall we say to Him? What words shall we use? How should we entertain Him? How shall we please Him? What shall we do so that His love pours on us?

Nanak does not seem to give any answer. He raises the question and leaves it unanswered. And that is the art, because he says that whatever we say, it is He who speaks through us. What is so exceptional in offering His own words to Him? Only in ignorance can it be done. Wisdom recognizes that: "Nothing is left to offer Him because I too am an offering at His feet." No words can become a prayer, because all words are His. It is He who speaks; it is He who throbs within the heart; it is He who is the breath of breaths. Then what is the wise one to do?

Nanak says: Remember satnam, the true name, and its glories in the ambrosial hour. There is nothing else to be done. What is the wise one, the sensible person to do?

The Hindus call it sandhya which literally means evening; it is used to designate the hour of prayer at twilight and at dawn. Nanak calls it amrit vela which means nectar or ambrosia time. It is an even more appropriate name. The Hindus have been working on this path for thousands of years. In search of the reality of existence and exploring consciousness, they have found paths in almost all directions; almost nothing is left undiscovered. They have gradually determined that in the twenty- four hours of the day there are two short periods of sandhya.

In the night when you retire to bed, there is a short period when you are neither asleep nor awake.

At this particular moment your consciousness, so to speak, changes gears. In changing the gears of the car, you have to move through the neutral gear before going to the second gear. So for a moment, the car is in no gear.

Sleep and wakefulness are two very different states. When awake you may be filled with misery; in sleep you become an emperor! You do not even wonder that the one who is a beggar in the day can be a king at night. You are in an altogether different gear. You are on a plane of consciousness that is entirely different from your ordinary daytime consciousness; and these two levels have nothing to do with each other. Otherwise you would have remembered for an instant, that you are a beggar and why have you become a king? But when you dream you are entirely identified with the dream.

You experience the waking hours of the day as a different existence altogether from the world of sleep. You enter an entirely different world.

In the day you are a saint, at night you are a sinner - and do you even wonder at it? Have you ever doubted your dreams while dreaming? Once you do the dream will break apart, for doubting is part of wakefulness; it is a part of waking consciousness. In dreams you are not conscious of the fact that you are dreaming.

There are many orders of seekers where the spiritual exercise is taught that when they prepare to sleep at night, they should keep one thought in mind: "This is a dream... this is a dream." It takes three years for this remembrance to become strong enough for the seeker to recognize the dream as a dream - at which point it breaks. From then on, there are no dreams for him, because now the gears are not separate. The two planes of consciousness merge into one: now he is awake even when sleeping. This is what Krishna means when he says the yogi is awake when others sleep. The wall between the compartments has fallen and now it is one big room.

Both in the night when you are about to fall asleep and in the morning just as sleep departs and you are about to awake - these are the two moments when consciousness, in its process of changing gears, drops for a moment into neutral, when you are drifting between sleeping and waking consciousness. This is the time that Hindus call sandhya and Nanak calls amrit vela. Sandhya kal is a scientific term. Kal means hour, and sandhya refers to middle, neither here nor there - neither belonging to this world nor to that. At the moment of sandhya kal you are nearest to God; therefore the Hindus have made use of this time for prayer. Amrit vela, nectar time, is sweeter - the moment you are nearest to ambrosia.

It all happens in this temporal body: with one mechanism of the body you sleep, with another you awake. All dreams pertain to the body. All waking and sleeping happens to the body. Behind this body is hidden a you, who never sleeps, never awakens. How can he who never sleeps, awaken?

There is a you who never dreams, because that requires sleep, and that never sleeps. Behind the various states of this body hides the ambrosia, the nectar that is never born, never dies. If you succeed in locating the sandhya kal, you will come to know of the bodiless within the body; you will know the master hidden behind the slave. You are both. If you look at the body alone, you are the slave; if you look at the master within, you become the master.

So, says Nanak, there is only one thing worth doing and that is to meditate on the glory of satnam, the true name, in amrit vela. You will gain nothing by going to temples making various demands.

Nothing will result from worship and sacrifices, by offering leaves and flowers, because what sense is there in offering Him what is already His? There is only one thing worth doing - pray in the ambrosial hour.

Sandhya kal lasts but a moment, but your mind is never in the present, therefore you always miss it.

Every day it comes - once in every twelve hours you are nearest to God, but you miss Him, because your eyes are not alert enough to the present, to catch this subtle moment.

As you sit here now, are you here or have you gone to your office and started your daily work? Are you involved in what I say or are your thoughts engaged in thinking about what I say? If so, you will miss the present.

If you want to catch the ambrosial moment, you must become conscious of the present at every moment! When you eat, let only eating be - no other thought should fill your mind. When you bathe - bathe only; no other thought should be in the mind. When you are in your office, let your thoughts be only of the work, not thinking of home. When you go home, forget about the office. Be completely, wholly, within each moment and not here, there and everywhere. This way the subtle sight will develop gradually and you will be able to see the present moment.

It is only after this, that you can meditate in the nectar hour, because that is a very subtle moment.

It passes by in a flash. You may be thinking of something else and the moment has come and gone!

Before falling to sleep, lie in bed completely relaxed. Still the mind in every way, don't let any thoughts drag you here and there, or else you will miss the moment. Let the mind become like the cloudless sky: not a trace of a cloud, that's how empty the mind should be. Keep watching, be alert; because when the mind becomes empty there is the danger of your falling asleep. Keep watch within. If you succeed in remaining awake, soon you will hear a sound - the changing of gear - but it is a very, very subtle sound. If thoughts are rambling within, you will never hear it. Then you will be able to witness the day turn into night, waking turn into slumber, and also sleep turning into awakening. You stand apart, witnessing the various processes.

The one who is witnessing, the seer, is the nectar. Then you will easily observe waking consciousness fading out and sleep coming in; and in the morning you will see slumber depart and consciousness dawning. When you become capable of seeing both sleep and awaking, you will stand apart from both. You become the seer. This is the nectar moment. Nanak says, at this moment - the amrit vela - let your experience be of His glories.

And this feeling should be: He is truth, His name is truth. Do not say the words, keep only the feeling within. If you begin reciting the Japuji you will miss it; no words, no thoughts - only feelings. If in that moment you begin reciting His attributes: "You are great, You are boundless, You are such..."

you will miss it. The moment is so very subtle.

Remember the experience of falling in love. Did you need to express your feelings over and over?

Do you need to sing the beauty of your beloved every time you meet? Words make everything hollow and superficial. The truth is, as soon as you begin to express it, the glory of love is gone! You cannot express love in words.

When you sit with your beloved in silence a feeling of the glory of love resounds within the heart.

You are thrilled, you are in bliss, you are happy and cheerful without any reason. You feel filled to the brim for no reason. All emptiness is gone; you are replete with love. The lover feels the stream of love overflowing, like a river so full that it pours over its banks! You will always find lovers silent, while husband and wife are always talking. They are afraid to be silent. In silence there would be no connection between them, because their relationship is one of conversation and words. If the husband is quiet the wife is worried; if the wife is quiet the husband feels something has gone wrong.

Only when they quarrel are they quiet. The silence you now use for quarrels should be used for the highest love.

When two people are intensely in love they are so overwhelmed with feeling that there is no room for words. In this state they may hold hands or embrace, but speech is completely lost. Lovers become dumb; talking seems trivial, it seems an obstruction. For speech would destroy the profound silence; speech would snap the strings of the heart; speech would disturb the surface of the ocean and waves would begin to form. Therefore lovers become silent.

In that moment of nectar you are not to allow a single thought, or form any words. You have to preserve the mood, the feeling of His supreme glory, of loving gratitude for all He has given. You are full - overfull; you want nothing. Let thankfulness, gratitude flow from you.

There is nothing to say, what can we say to Him? All words are useless. Meditate on satnam. Be filled with the true name and you will feel you have established a rhythm with the amrit vela. Be alert and you will be shocked! You will feel you have become a flame of light without beginning or end, which always is, true and eternal. It is in this flame that the doors of existence open and the hidden truth is revealed.

Nanak says: Through your actions this body is achieved. In that intense moment you will know that the body is a result of actions, of karma; and it is His benevolent, all-compassionate eyes that open the door of salvation. The body is the fruit of your actions.

A few things need to be clarified here. First: only certain things can be attained by actions, only what is petty and trivial. The vast absolute cannot be attained through actions. Kabir has said, "All happens by nondoing." You have to be in the state of nondoing in order to attain the absolute.

Whatever I do cannot be greater than myself. How could it be otherwise? The action can never be greater than its doer. The sculpture is never greater than the sculptor, the poem never transcends the poet. It is just not possible. Whatever comes out of you is invariably less than you, or at the most, it can be equal to you - but never greater. How will you attain God? Your actions will achieve nothing; the more you try through action the more you will wander.

In a vain attempt to hide this wandering you have carved images in temples. There is no way to fashion God, because God fashions us. You make idols, you make temples - these bear the imprint of your hands and therefore are insignificant. How can the absolute that is so vast come out of your hands? But it is also possible that your creation may bear the stamp of God - when you leave yourself completely to Him; then it is He who acts, and you are only the implement.

A wealthy Indian industrialist has constructed many temples bearing his name. No trace of God will ever be found there. What has it to do with God? You will not find Him in the temple, nor in the church, nor in the mosque, nor even in the gurudwara, because these bear the stamp of Hindu, Christian, Mohammedan and Sikh.

There can be no name to God's temple. He is without name; therefore His temple also has to be nameless. Whatever you make, however beautiful, however loaded with precious stones, it will bear the stamp of man. Your temple may be bigger than other temples, it cannot be bigger than you. And He can only manifest in your temple when you become completely nonmanifest; there should not be a trace of you anywhere.

Until now we have been unable to construct a temple where there is no stamp of man. All temples belong to someone or other. The builder of the temple is very much in the atmosphere of the temple.

No temple is truly His. The truth in fact is, there is no need to build a temple to Him because the whole of existence is His temple. It is He twittering in the birds; it is He blooming within the flowers; it is He wafting in the breeze; it is He gurgling in the rivers and brooks. The whole wide sky is His expanse and you are a wave that has arisen in Him. His temple is so vast, how can you contain Him in your small places of worship?

Man can do a great deal through his performance. The West is an example of this. They have attained a great deal through actions. They have succeeded in building good houses, good roads.

They have made scientific discoveries, made the hydrogen bomb. They have made great preparation for death and destruction. But they are completely bereft of God.

The more they attained in the physical field, the more they lost all those things that are born of the nondoer state. The very first thing they lost was God. Nietzsche said a hundred years ago: "God is dead," and for the West, God was really dead. When they are filled with actions and deeds, all connection with Him is broken - then He is as good as dead for them. And since God was almost lost to them, all prayers became hollow and superficial. Meditation was completely lost. There was no point in meditating. For if everything is to be attained by action, what is left to INaction? And meditation is inaction.

Therefore the occidental mind takes the Easterner to be lethargic and indolent. Nanak's father thought the same of Nanak, that he was lazy, indolent. What was he doing just sitting all day? The father had a business mind and this son posed a problem for him by doing no work and showing no inclination to follow any trade. Whenever he went to work he was thrown out. He did not study, because he would invariably get into an argument with the teacher. For he would tell him, "The last word is already spoken. What more is there to know? And have you attained Him in spite of all your learning?" When the teacher had to reply in the negative, Nanak said, "Then I shall seek a way to know Him myself," and the teacher regretfully took him home, acknowledging his inability to teach him.

Kabir says: "All the world has learned books upon books, and never has even one become a learned man. He who learns the four letters of l-o-v-e, becomes a wise man."

Nanak set out to learn these four letters of love in order to attain knowledge. Why should he endure the business of all this knowledge which has such a different goal altogether?

Mulla Nasruddin was a school teacher. Every day for many years he rode his donkey to school. At last the attitude of learning caught hold of the ass too, and one day he turned to the rider on his back and asked, "Mulla, why do you go to school every day?"

The Mulla was quite taken aback. Was he hearing right? Did the donkey really speak? He had heard many donkeys speak, but never a four-legged one! However, if those others can talk why not this one? The Mulla thought, "It must be that all this going to school has had an effect on him and he has just begun to speak. It was my own fault bringing him to school every day."

"Why do you want to know?" asked the Mulla.

"I am curious, that's all. Why do you come to school every day?" said the donkey.

"I come to teach the children."

"Why?"

"So the children can learn."

"What happens by learning?"

"A person gains intelligence and wisdom."

"What use is intelligence?" persisted the ass.

"What use you say? It is because of my intelligence that I am riding you!" said the Mulla.

"Teach me also, Mulla. Give me intelligence!" said the donkey.

"Oh, no," said the Mulla, "I am not that foolish. Then you will be riding me!"

All that we learn in this world serves as a means of getting the better of one another. It is a plan for your conflicts in life. You will be able to fight better and win out if you have more degrees. The universities are a reflection of your aggression; armed with its weapons you can compete and exploit others more efficiently. You can harass them more systematically, and commit crimes lawfully. With the right rules and methods you can do effectively all that you otherwise could not do, and which you should not do. Education teaches dishonesty and deceit. As a result you may win out over others, but you will never be wise. Rather, people are becoming more and more unwise, ignorant.

Our universities are not centers of learning, because no wisdom is contained there.

So Nanak's teacher himself took him home and acknowledged to his father that he was unable to teach him.

When Nanak reached the age of twelve, he was about to be initiated into the Hindu religion and receive the sacred thread. It was an important ceremony. Many people were invited and a band was arranged. When the priest had finished his incantations and was about to place the sacred thread on him, Nanak said, "Wait! What will happen by wearing this thread?"

The pundit said, "You will become a dwija," which is a member of the Hindu faith, literally a twice- born.

Nanak asked, "Will the old really die and the new be born? If that is so, I am ready." The pundit was concerned because he knew to the contrary, that nothing would happen, that it was only an empty ceremony. Nanak asked, "What if this thread were to break?"

"You can always buy a new one from the market and throw away the old," said the pundit.

"Then let this one go now," said Nanak. "Anything that breaks by itself and is sold in the marketplace for a trifling amount, how can it help me to find God? How can man's creation help to find God? For man's performances are always petty and inferior."

His father, Kalu Mehta, was convinced the boy was a total good-for-nothing. He had done his best to bring him round to doing something, but had failed. When there was no other way, there was a last resort that came in handy in the villages - he was sent to graze the cattle. Nanak went quite happily to the pasture and was soon lost in meditation while the cattle destroyed the adjacent fields.

The next day he had to be removed from this, too. His father was now doubly convinced that the boy could do nothing and would amount to nothing.

Now it is an interesting fact that those people who have done the most for the world are denied this world completely; those who are the just claimants of the other world are almost unable to do anything in this world. It is not that they are not capable, but their whole quality of being and doing is different. They become only a means, a medium through which many things can happen.

What would Nanak have attained by grazing cattle? Many people do. What would Nanak have attained by running a shop well? Many do, and yet the world remains as before. This person has removed himself from the world of action and is drowned in the world of glory.

Glory means: "Thou art the doer. What can I perform?" No sooner do you begin to feel your worthlessness, expressed as, "What can I do?" than your ego begins to fall away, drop by drop.

The day you feel this in totality - that you are unqualified, incapable, nothing happens because of you, you are helpless - the doors of liberation open for you.

God cannot be installed in any place; therefore, how can you make temples? How will you consecrate His idols? He is complete in Himself, so you have no need to create Him. He was when you were not, and He will be still when you are no longer. Do not bother yourselves with the worthless task of creating His images. Rituals, temples, idols - these will lead you nowhere.

Then what will lead you to the goal? Those who have served Him, those who have revered and worshipped Him, have attained His presence. If He is everything, service is prayer; if He is everything, service is worship. The more you get absorbed in service, the nearer you will reach Him.

If the tree is thirsty, water it; if the cow is hungry, feed it. You are thereby quenching His thirst, and feeding Him.

You need sensitivity in order to serve. Temples, big or small, serve no purpose. They are just devices to escape prayer. His temple is enormous and equally great should be your attitude of service - because that alone is He, the whole wide universe and all that it contains!

When Jesus was about to be crucified, his followers asked him, "What shall we do now?"

Jesus said: "Do not worry. If you quench the thirst of the thirsty, the water will soothe my throat.

If you serve the poor and needy, you will find me hidden within them. If you have been angry or abused someone, there is no point in coming to the temple. If while you kneel in prayer, you realize your mistake, get up first and beg pardon of the person. For till then how can you pray? It is He who is spread everywhere." Therefore Nanak says, "Those who have served Him have attained His glory."

What kind of worship? Service! This word is very significant, so allow it to go deep inside you.

Remember to keep in mind that whomever you serve is God.

You can serve people in another sense also, which is very different. When you serve people knowing that they are poor, miserable or needy, it is out of pity; then you are above him and he is below. When you are being kind, taking pity, you are not serving. Then it is an ordinary social service and this service is not worship. You are a mere social worker, a member of the Lion's Club or a Rotarian flaunting the motto: "We serve." You are filled with arrogance. You build a small hospital but your publicity is enormous. Social service is not worship; you are throwing crumbs to the hungry, you are doing great kindness, obliging others. You are at the top, serving those who are way down at your feet and who should be grateful. This is not worship.

Service becomes worship when the one you serve is God. He is master, you the slave. It is not He who is indebted; rather you - that He gave you the opportunity. You have given a poor man bread and also thanked him.

There is an old Hindu custom of giving alms to the brahmin as well as a love offering, a gift as a token of gratitude for his having accepted the alms, that he accepted your service. Feeling indebted to the one you serve converts your service into worship; it is not social service but a religious act.

Understand well the difference: to be proud of what you do as a welfare worker, is not Nanak's idea of service. Service makes you humble. Service sees God in the lowly. Service makes you a servant.

"He who is last becomes the first." And you will stand the very last. Service also presumes that you are indebted to him who gives you an opportunity to serve.

This glory is not of your ego because it is only realized when the ego is no more. Then these servants of the Lord became famous and buddhahood shone through them. Then the darkness of their house was banished and the lamp within shone full and bright.

And this can only happen if you dedicate all your actions to Him. When you sit in your shop and a customer comes in, see not the customer but God within him. Deal with him as if God himself has entered your shop. If you wish to be drowned in Him all day long there is no other way than this.

While eating feel it is He entering you in the form of food. Therefore the Hindus say food is Brahma.

Do not eat thoughtlessly. Remember, it is He who bloomed on the plants; it is He who has become the grain. Accept Him most gratefully. When you accept food as Brahma, when drinking water you feel it is He come to quench your thirst in the form of water, only then can you absorb Him all the twenty-four hours. What other way is there for you?

You go to the gurudwara or church and pray, or chant, or sing hymns for an hour or so while your mind runs here and there. Even for this short period, you check your watch to see whether it is getting late, whether it is time to go to work. How can you worship Him in bits and pieces? You try to pray a little in the morning and a little while in the evening while you remain your ordinary old self the rest of the day.

To be religious is a twenty-four-hour undertaking; the religious spirit should pervade you all day long.

Religion doesn't exist in odd moments; there is no religious day or religious hour. All life in its totality is His. All moments are His. Religion is a very different way of living in which everything you do is in some way or other connected with God.

Nanak says, Sing in praise of the Lord of all attributes. Sing only of Him, listen only to Him, let only Him reside in your heart. As you sit listening to me you can hear in two ways: either as if someone is talking or as if it is God's voice coming to you. In the latter case you will feel a change coming over you. Keep Him in mind always. Thus you will be rid of suffering and carry home the bounty of bliss. Thus after a full day's labors you will reach home carrying not sorrow but joy.

Now coming home you carry nothing but the pain of some customer who tricked you, or someone who picked your pocket, or whatever you ate that was not good; there is always cause for complaint.

Your day is a collection of sorrows, but if you begin to see God all around you in whatever you do, you will reap a rich harvest of joy, says Nanak.

Not only will you live in happiness in your everyday home but at the hour of death when you prepare to leave for your real home, you will be overflowing, filled to the brim, saturated with joy. Then you will depart dancing, not crying. If death does not become a dance, know that life has gone to waste.

If death is not an occasion of joy and celebration, know that your life was ill-spent, because you are returning home; and if going home is not a matter of celebration, then your whole life adds up only to sorrow.

Your suffering exists only because you are trying to steer your life without God. Having set Him aside, you have trusted yourself too much and taken yourself to be too clever; there is no other reason for your unhappiness.

And the reason for your happiness is equally simple: you have set your cleverness and intellect aside, giving no credence to your abilities but experiencing Him in everything; you have begun to live more in Him and less in yourself. Ultimately you may dwell entirely in Him.

Why should you see your wife as wife, and not as God? Why should you see your son in your son, and not God as your son? As your perception changes, happiness joins you. If your son dies you will be unhappy because your perception was wrong. You thought: "My son." Had you realized beforehand that he is God's son, you would have thought: "When He wished, He sent him to me; when He wished, He called him back. All is His command." And you would have accepted all conditions, knowing it was His son sent to you, and feeling grateful for the days He let you have him.

To whom to complain, and about what? He gave when He pleased, He took away when He pleased.

You have no hand in it. All is His - everything! Then, where are the tears? Where the anxiety, the sorrow and distress? If He gives, you are happy; if He does not give, you are happy. His ways are unique. Sometimes He gives and thus creates you. Sometimes He takes away and in so doing you evolve further! Sometimes suffering is necessary, because sorrow wakes you up, makes you conscious. In happiness you are lost and asleep! In suffering you awaken.

There was a Sufi fakir by the name of Hassan. One day as they were getting in a boat his disciple said, "That there is joy I can understand, because God is our Father, and it is but natural that He should give joy to His children; but why sorrow, why unhappiness?"

Hassan gave no reply but began to row the boat with only one oar. The boat began to turn in circles.

"What are you doing?" the disciple called out. "If you row with one oar we shall never reach the other shore. We shall keep going round and round in this one spot. Has the other oar broken or is your arm paining? Let me row the boat!"

Hassan replied, "You seem to be a much more intelligent fellow than I thought!"

If there is joy alone, the boat will go only in circles and arrive nowhere. For it to work, the opposite is also needed. A boat moves with two oars, a man walks with two feet, and two hands are needed to work. In life you need night and day, joy and sorrow, birth and death; or else the boat keeps going round and round, reaching nowhere.

When a person begins to perceive correctly, knowing that He is in everything, he is filled with thanksgiving; even when sorrow comes he accepts it cheerfully. Then you accept His joy and you accept His sorrow equally. then joy is no longer joy, sorrow is no longer sorrow;the dividing line is lost. When you begin to look upon them impartially, your attachment to joy and rejection of suffering are both broken and you stand apart, free from both, having arrived at the attitude of witness. Then you shall be rid of sorrow and carry home joy.

Understand that Nanak has glorified the guru to a great extent. All saints have sung the glory of the guru, placing him above the scriptures. If the guru says something that is not found in the Vedas, forget the Vedas, because the guru is the living scripture. There is a reason why saints have extolled and treasured the guru's words so. First of all, the Vedas are also expressions of gurus; but these gurus are not present today. And the words have lost the purity they had when they were first uttered, because those who collected them, of necessity, combined and mixed them with their own thoughts - this they could not help. Though it was not done on purpose, it is certain that it happened.

If I tell you something with instructions to repeat it to your neighbor, you are bound to lose something and add something to what I said. The mode of speaking will change. Even if you use exactly the words I used, your preferences and your emphasis will be different from mine. When you speak, your experience, your knowledge, your understanding will creep into the words.

I give you a flower, and you take it in your hand to give to someone from me, but the flower will have caught some of your smell. Just as the flower's scent remains in your hands, the flower also picks up your scent. The flower is no longer the flower I gave you. And if the flower has passed through a thousand hands, it will carry the scent of all those hands. And if the flower were to come back to me, I would never be able to recognize it as the same flower. The essence of the flower I knew would be lost by the touch of a thousand hands. It will not look the same as when I gave it, but will have fallen into pieces, its petals scattered here and there. People will have to stick on other petals to complete the flower before they bring it back to me.

The Vedas are the utterances of gurus. Those who have known have spoken. But now it is thousands and thousands of years since these words were spoken. Much has been deleted, much added. Therefore it is great good fortune to come across a living guru when the book has turned stale.

Another very interesting thing is: when you read a book, you interpret the words in your own way. It is you who reads and you who interprets, and your interpretation cannot be more than you; it cannot transcend your own understanding. You will attach your own meanings to the words.

So the book cannot become your guru; you become guru to the book! You have not learned the scriptures, rather you begin to teach the scriptures; thus you find thousands of interpretations. Look at the Gita - how many commentaries there are! Whoever reads it takes his own meanings from it. Krishna is no longer here to censor by saying: "Brother, this is not what I meant!" When Krishna spoke, he was definite about what he meant, but who is to say now what his intention was? Even Arjuna could not say, though he was the one to hear it; because whatever he says will have been changed by him.

The whole Gita has been written by Sanjay, who was no more than a news reporter of his day. It was his job to report on the battle being fought over one hundred miles away to Dhritrashtra, the blind king. He must have seen the whole thing on television. The deaf are listening and reporting to the blind! So the truth lies even further away. What Krishna said, even Arjuna could not have reported correctly, but only in the light of his own understanding. He could repeat only what he understood and not what Krishna actually said. And now we introduce Sanjay who is collecting the news. He is the reporter - the third person!

Then thousands of years elapse while we have all the commentators, each claiming to elucidate it out of his own understanding. By then each word acquires infinite meanings, and the Gita becomes meaningless. Whatever you put in has become a new edition.

Therefore Nanak and Kabir and others have stressed one point - seek a living guru. The scriptures had all become stale and secondhand, thirdhand, even at the time of these saints.

Those who have seen Him with their own eyes, cannot describe Him completely. He cannot be expressed through words. And you go looking for God in books? - the Gita, the Bible, the Koran or Guru Granth! Even a living guru cannot explain Him thoroughly. About himself Nanak says: "Even if I had known completely, I would not have been able to give a complete description; because He cannot be expressed through words."

What cannot be expressed through words you are trying to understand through explanations and the printed word, but you can only get news of Him through a living guru. And it is not that you will understand all that the guru says; you will understand what the guru is. The guru's presence will make you understand His very being. To be with him, to breathe the air around him, is to be in a different climate altogether! At least for that much time you are lost to the world; you reside in a different world, and your consciousness has assumed another form. Be ready and willing to look through the guru's window - there is no other way besides this.

Gur means technique, method. He who gives the method is the guru. And the secret method, the technique according to Nanak is:

He is the one creator of all, the maker. May I always remember this truth: that He is hidden behind all. He is the hand of all hands; He is the eye of all eyes. It is He who throbs; it is He who is life.

May this remembrance remain every moment. By grasping this secret, you will gradually see beyond the beads of the mala and be able to grasp the thread that goes through them all. That thread is God and you are the beads. The stream of life that flows through you, is God; He is the thread on which turns the bead of your body, and this thread is the same in me as in you. It is the same that runs within the trees, the birds, the animals, the mountains, the plains. It is He living in the various forms, swelling in every wave, so catch hold of the constant remembrance of this thread and never forget it - and you have the secret at hand. All riddles will then be solved by themselves.

So what will you do? How will you guard this remembrance all day long? You will need terrible courage, for there are many difficulties to be faced. Had it not been for these obstacles the world would have become religious long ago. Pains and difficulties there are and will continue to be; because any attainment without trouble is almost useless. Without traveling you can never reach your destination; you are bound to wander. You will only appreciate and care for that which you acquire with difficulty. Besides, if you are out to attain the ultimate truth you will have to make some sacrifice!

Religion is to lose on one side and gain on the other, and so problems arise. If you begin to see God in the customer, how will you fleece him? It will be difficult. If you are a pickpocket, seeing God in your victim, your hand will be paralyzed. How can you do evil? How will you be angry? How will you make enemies?

If you see Him in everything the structure of your life will begin to crumble from all sides. The house you have built stands against all He signifies, because you built it when you had forgotten Him. If now you begin to remember Him the house cannot remain.

One thing however is certain; though you cannot see it today, you will get a bigger house. Therefore we need gamblers on the path, people with the courage to leave whatever is at hand in order to realize something about which they cannot be absolutely certain. Therefore I always say, religion is not for the businessman, it is for the gambler! The gambler stakes his all with the hope of attaining twice as much. Whether he will or not, is never certain. He does not know which way the dice will fall - no one knows. It is that kind of gambler's courage that you need if you wish to walk along with Nanak.

All religions have become feeble because we have not the courage of the gambler, but stick to the mathematics of the businessman. Then it becomes very difficult to remember this sutra, which aims to change your life from its very roots; you will not be the same from even such a small sutra. It will start such a raging fire in your life that this life will disappear.

Kabir says: "Only he who is prepared to burn his house, need walk with me." Which house is Kabir talking of? The edifice you have created round yourself - the house of lies, deceit, anger, enmity, malice, jealousy and hatred - this is what your house is.

Grab hold of this sutra, only this:

That within, the master of all, is one. For your life to change, you need nothing more. You do not need to do Patanjali's yoga asanas, nor have you to worry about the ten commandments of the Jews, nor concern yourself with the Gita or the Koran.

A small secret, such a tiny secret, to change your entire life! Through this secret Nanak attained and you can also.

But remember Kabir: "Only he who is prepared to burn his house, he alone need walk with me."