Bani: Soami Ji Maharaj
[Now that you have been given this human form,
strive to accomplish your own task.]
This hymn is taken from the writings
of Hazur Soami Ji Maharaj,
in which he explains every aspect
of his teachings clearly and in great detail.
He says that whatever we see with our eyes – 
this creation, this world –
is a vast prison of 8.4 million species.
Owing to our karmas we are
being held captive in this prison,
and we keep coming back to it, one birth after another,
to undergo the consequences of our karma.
There is no doubt that our soul is part of the Lord;
we are drops of the divine ocean of the true Nam,
but upon our separation from Him, we got entangled
in the web of maya and took on the company of the mind.
The mind is then enamoured by the sensual pleasures,
the negative tendencies, the pleasures of food and drink,
and the various other things of this world.
The actions that we perform under the influence of the mind,
whether good or bad, have to all be accounted for
by coming back into this prison of eighty-four.
Most saints have referred to this world
as a land of karmas, a field of actions –
Because the seed that we sow
determines the crop we will harvest.
This is why Soami Ji says:
“Whatever actions you perform,
you have to suffer their consequences.”
If you do good deeds, you come back
to the world to enjoy their pleasant results.
If you do bad ones, you will suffer unpleasant results.
You cannot free yourselves from the bondage
of the physical body by doing good deeds,
nor can you escape the pain and suffering
of the cycle of death and rebirth by doing bad deeds.
If you do good deeds, you may
come back as kings and emperors,
or as people of power in your
communities, religions or nations.
The iron shackles are removed
and replaced with golden ones.
You were C-class prisoners
and now you are A-class prisoners.
The broom will be taken from your hands
and will be replaced by the reins of authority.
Instead of making our bed in a small hut,
we will make it in a palace.
At best, we may go to a paradise or heaven,
after which we still have to return
to the prison of eighty-four.
And if we do bad deeds, then hell and the
prison of eighty-four stand ever in wait.
King or subject, rich or poor, man or woman –
everyone is undergoing the consequences
of their own actions in this creation.
Soami Ji says that the Lord has
blessed us with this human form,
so that we may devote ourselves
to the Lord and attain union with Him.
While in this human form,
if we can settle our karmic debts;
if we can devote ourselves to the
Lord and attain union with Him,
then we will be freed forever
from the bondage of this body.
The Lord has provided only one door
to escape from this prison of eighty-four.
What is this door?
It is the human form.
The Lord gives us this opportunity so that we may
take advantage of it, and free ourselves from this prison;
so that we may devote ourselves
to the Lord and attain union with Him,
and forever escape from the bondage
of the body and the suffering of birth and death.
The one real business we can get
in the human form, as you know,
is devotion for the Lord and union with Him.
This is why Guru Nanak Sahib says:
“The abode of the body is a beauteous township
in which one engages in the trade of God's Nectar.”
Our body is a beautiful township,
because while we are in this body we can
derive the advantage of union with the Lord –
this cannot be achieved in any other form of life.
Kabir Sahib says:
“O Kabir, rare is the human birth.
It is not given again and again;
just as ripe fruit once fallen cannot be attached to its branch.”
This human body is obtained after great difficulty.
When a fruit ripens and falls from the tree,
however hard we may try,
we will not be able to attach it back to the branch.
Similarly, if we miss this opportunity,
we will not get it again and again.
We don't know if we will ever get a human body again,
or whether we will be born in a situation where
we may never think about God, even inadvertently.
This is why the saints advise us
to take advantage of this opportunity;
we should keep our objective before our eyes,
search for our destination, and complete our spiritual journey.
So that we fulfill the purpose
for having received this human birth.
However, when the Lord does give us the opportunity,
we completely forget the real purpose of life.
We get entangled in love for our children,
and in conflicts of race, religion, and nationality.
We get trapped by the pleasures of food and drink;
we get deluded by our cravings for wealth and possessions.
We become enslaved by sensual pleasures
and our negative tendencies to such an extent,
that we even forget that one day we will die.
Every day we see our friends
and relatives are leaving us – they are dying.
We accompany them to the
cremation ground one after another,
and we see for ourselves how none of those things
that they were so proud to possess went with them.
Yet we think that maybe he was just unfortunate
that he could not take any of
his possessions along with him –
and that we, on the other hand, may be able to 
bring everything we have collected with us.
This is why the saints awaken us from our deep slumber.
Think about that time of your life -
who will come to your help; who will come to your rescue?
Your sons, daughters, relatives, friends, brothers or sisters?
Because of them, you deceived and cheated others
and compromised on your valuable principles.
They do not even know where the angels of death
come from and in which direction they will take us.
When they don’t even know where the
angels of death come from or where they will take us,
just think, how can they be of any help to us?
I say this every day, that we have
a relationship of give and take with them;
our love is based on our self-interest.
Some have already left us, while we are
getting ready to leave others and go onwards.
All actors come on stage to play their individual roles;
one plays the role of the king,
one of the queen, and one of the villain.
But once they leave the stage,
there is no king, no queen, no villain.
Saints explain that in the same way,
this world is a vast stage.
We are each playing our specific roles
according to our particular karma.
In the process of playing our part, though, we forget
that these relationships are based on give and take,
that our love for them is selfish.
Believing that they are ours, we try to possess them –
yet they can never belong to anyone.
However, in the process of trying to possess them,
we become entrapped in their attachment and love.
And it is this attachment and love that keeps bringing us
back again and again to the captivity of the body.
This is why saints warn us that the
forms and objects of the world,
which we run after and long for,
can be of no help or assistance to us.
Think about that particular time of your life [death].
What to think about that, we are rather entangled
throughout the day in the ego and vanity of the body!
Nobody tries to think with an open mind –
while in this human body, what are we so proud of?
Why are we so arrogant?
Are we proud of our youth?
Have we not seen people growing old?
Are we not going to grow old?
Are we proud of our looks and our beauty?
Have we never gone to a hospital
and seen the faces of the sick?
If we get chickenpox, measles, jaundice, and so on,
we find it difficult to look at ourselves in a mirror.
Or are we intoxicated with power?
Great leaders were shot by the
people or sent to the gallows.
We started to ruin those leaders’ reputation.
Are we proud of our money?
Have we not seen the wealthiest of people,
kings and rulers roaming the streets like paupers?
What are we so proud of while in this human form?
This is why Soami Ji warns us:
“O mind, why be proud?
One day this body will mingle with dust and
you will be cast back into the cycle of birth and death.”
Are you proud because of your body?
This will be consigned to the flames,
and you will be presented before the Lord of Justice.
For some, the body will be consigned to fire,
and for others, it will be buried beneath the earth.
The messengers of death come, pull us by the ear,
and take us to the Lord of Justice,
and he then decides, as he deems fit,
where we will take birth again.
With great difficulty we leave the prison
of one body crying, weeping and wailing,
only to find another body already waiting for us.
No sooner we come into that body,
death is there in front of us again.
Like confirmed criminals, we remain handcuffed forever.
If someone’s warrants are being
issued by the court every day,
and if he is constantly being
investigated by the police –
just think, what could he be proud of?
Just read history and see what happened
to the great rulers, tyrants, and dictators –
the very mention of their names
would send shivers down people’s spines.
These were men whose words became law.
Where are they today?
We trample on their graves as we pass by,
their bones crumble beneath our feet
and their dust blinds our eyes.
We forget that time when one day people
will trample on our graves in the same way,
our bones will crumble beneath their feet –
we too will have become the dust of
the earth and will blind their eyes.
We think that death is for others,
whereas for us there are the sensual pleasures
and the delights of food and drink.
That is why Kabir Sahib cautions us that you are
burning wood now, but the wood is also saying:
keep that time in mind when I will take you
with me and burn you in the same way.
Then Kabir Sahib says that you make pots by
kneading clay, but the earth is also saying:
there will be a time when I will
take you into the earth with me.
So the saints use various examples and try to warn us -
what are we so proud and arrogant about?
This is why Guru Nanak Sahib says:
“Ensnared in this world, everyone chases
the affairs of this world, and does not think of meditation.
The foolish and ignorant manmukh
has even forgotten birth and death.”
We worldly beings are manmukhs;
we are so foolish and ignorant that we spend all our time
restlessly running around to satisfy our basic needs.
Day and night we chase the
forms and objects of this world.
We do not think, even in our dreams, about the
purpose for which the Lord gave us this opportunity.
This is why Soami Ji says that each one of us
should try to take full advantage of this opportunity.
Guru Sahib has said:
“Whosoever misses the opportunity in this birth
suffers the woes of coming and going.”
The human form is the last step of a ladder.
If we try, we can reach the roof of the house from here,
but if our foot slips on this last step,
we will fall right to the bottom.
So in this world we need to tread cautiously.
This is why Soami Ji says that the Lord
has bestowed this human form
so we can engage in devotion and love for Him.
Thus, he says:
“Fulfill the purpose of your life.”
Therefore, you think about it sometimes.
You can’t be a beast of burden throughout your life,
you can’t keep carrying the burden
of others throughout your life,
you can’t keep guarding other
people’s homes throughout your life.
Sometimes you should also try to think and reflect on the
purpose for which the Lord has given us this human form.
The Lord has granted us this form so that
we can collect diamonds and precious jewels.
We hear in Guru Nanak Sahib’s hymn that
we are busy collecting trinkets;
we are wasting away our precious
time on worthless pursuits.
This is why all the saints caution us
that we should seek the Lord;
we should engage ourselves in devotion to Him.
“Go from this home to that home.”
Soami Ji says that as long as you have the
opportunity to be in the human form –
as long as He has given you this honour,
you should try to search for your true home –
because this home will perish one day;
it will cease to exist,
but that home will never perish,
it will never cease to exist.
This is why all saints try to inspire
us to seek union with the Lord.
Soami Ji has said:
“Let us turn homewards, friend –
why linger in this alien land?”
This land is not your land, this race is not your race,
this religion is not your religion.
Your land is Sach Khand; your race is Satnam;
your religion is love for the Lord.
We wander suffering in this world as foreigners.
Just think that a child is kidnapped
and taken from India to a foreign country;
he is brought up there, educated there,
he gets married and has children there,
and he also starts a business in that country.
He starts considering that country as his own;
he considers those parents,
brothers, and sisters as his own;
he considers the culture of that country as his own.
If a resident of his native land
goes to that foreign country;
if he talks to him in his language
and wins his confidence –
then little by little he explains to him
that these are not your real parents.
Your parents are crying in separation from you;
these are not your real brothers and sisters;
your siblings yearn for you and remember you every day.
This is not your true country.
Slowly the love for his own country
starts to grow within him,
he then leaves everything and
returns to India with that man.
Saints similarly come to this world and explain to us:
Which land do you consider your home?
Which world do you consider your own?
This home is not your own,
this country is not your own.
This is why the fifth Guru says:
“The one who has sent you has called you back;
return home with peace and pleasure.”
The Lord who has brought the creation into
existence and who sent you to this world –
that Lord has also sent me to you.
Follow me and return to your true home.
Why are you wandering and
stumbling about in this alien land?
That is why Soami Ji says:
“Get busy with your own real work;
do not get caught up in other people's affairs.”
You should not spend your
whole life working for others.
While you still have this body,
you should accomplish something for yourself.
What is ours?
“Hold on to the Guru’s Nam,
as Nam is the only wealth that you have to save.”
We should keep the company of the saints
and engage in the practice of Shabd, of Nam,
so that you can be freed forever
from the bondage of the body.
Saints come to wake us up
from our slumber of lifetimes,
so that we can take full advantage of this
opportunity and not waste it in worthless pursuits.
We are so busy in the tasks of this world;
we are enslaved by these worldly activities
to such an extent that we do not even have time to think.
Ask anyone – the landlord will say I have no time;
the doctor will say I have no time;
the professor says I have no time;
the businessman says I have no time –
so then who has the time in this world?
We have become like parts of a machine;
we have forgotten ourselves;
we have forgotten who and what we really are.
Why has the Lord sent us to this creation?
Is it to eat and dress?
To have children?
To indulge in the senses?
Or was there another purpose for which
the Lord has given us this human form?
We never try to think and reflect on this.
This is why Soami Ji explains to us:
“Fulfill the purpose of your life.”
You have spent enough time in various worldly activities;
sometimes try to think about yourself also.
[Now that you have been given this human form,
strive to accomplish your own task.]
[Do not get lost in the affairs of this world;
think of it as a night’s dream.]
Now he explains to us:
Don’t be deceived by the pomp and show of the world
and think that it is an abode of great happiness.
When you see people living in beautiful homes,
wearing expensive jewellery,
riding in big cars, staying in 5-star hotels, you might
think that this world is an abode of great happiness,
and that the Lord has sent us here to enjoy
and indulge in the sense pleasures.
As a picture has two sides.
If we look at the front, we see a beautiful painting,
and a frame that also looks very nice.
But if we look at the back there is nothing but
nails and cardboard; it looks so ugly.
Similarly, this world may seem
very beautiful from a distance,
but if you go deep into it, you will see
pain and misery oozing out from everyone.
This is why Baba Farid says:
“Farid, I thought I alone was suffering,
but the whole world is suffering.
When I climbed up and looked around,
I saw this fire in each and every home.”
Baba Farid says:
I thought I was the only one who was suffering in this world.
What could a saint be unhappy about?
He might be miserable about his food,
his clothing, or his hut.
But he says:
When I went up to the higher regions,
I saw that the people of the entire world
were much more miserable than me;
they were all burning in the
fire of desires and cravings.
Guru Nanak Sahib says:
“O Nanak, the whole world is suffering.
Only the one who takes the support of Nam is happy.”
All living creatures, in their different situations,
are engulfed by pain and misery.
Only he is truly happy who is able to
detach his attention from the creation
and direct it towards devotion
for the Lord, love for the Lord.
“Happiness lies neither in living
a householder’s life, nor in renunciation.
Happiness lies in surrendering to the
saints and engaging in contemplation.”
The saints explain to us very clearly that happiness
cannot be found in the love of sons and daughters;
it cannot be found in household activities,
in the sensual pleasures, or in wealth.
Behind every pleasure there is pain;
we always have the fear that the gifts the Lord
has bestowed upon us might slip from our hands.
If the fear of losing something is there 24 hours of the day,
that it will be taken away from us,
then little by little this itself turns into a source of misery.
This is why Sahjo Bai says:
“The affluent are unhappy,
while the poor are the very image of agony and pain.”
Those who possess great wealth
and big estates are all unhappy. Why?
Guru Nanak Sahib says: “Those who appear to be
rich are afflicted with the disease of worry.”
They suffer from mental depression;
they depend on pills and drugs to sleep at night.
They are scared of being robbed by thieves;
they are scared of sales tax and income tax raids;
they are worried that their friends will become disloyal.
There are conflicts between husband and wife and then
among siblings because of the black money (illegally gained).
They are unable to breathe a sigh of relief.
“The poor are the very image of agony and pain.”
And the poor man who possesses nothing, who is
worried about his meals, is obviously miserable too.
So the saints try to explain that
this world is not a happy place;
while we are here we have to go through pain,
we have to go through troubles.
The little happiness that we experience
changes slowly into misery.
Because the things through which we seek
happiness are transient and perishable.
Thus the happiness that we get from
them is also transient and perishable.
The saints tell us:
Don’t think that this is an abode of happiness
and become attached or enamoured by it,
for you may be forced to come back to it again and again.
The saints don't come here to
make this world a better place;
rather they come to pull us out of here.
They don't come to this world as social,
political, or economic reformers.
The world will continue this way.
In olden times one would fight with sticks and swords;
now we use canons and guns,
and tomorrow we will be using different gases.
Strife and conflict will continue to happen in this world.
So the saints don’t ask us to try to turn
this creation into an abode of happiness.
They explain to us that we can never
pick out all the thorns on our path,
rather we should have some
courage and wear strong shoes
so that we will not be affected by the
pain and pleasures of this world.
We should follow the path that will help
us to rise above all pain and pleasure.
This is why Soami Ji says:
“My mind, abandon this abode of pleasure and pain.
Rise above it and attach yourself to Satnam, the Lord.”
The Lord has made this world
from both pain and pleasure.
It is due to our good and bad
deeds that we get a human form.
Therefore we will have to undergo suffering,
after which we will also experience some happiness.
If you want to attain everlasting happiness then:
“Rise above and attach yourself to Satnam, the Lord.”
We have to search for the true Nam,
for the Lord and attain union with Him.
This is why Guru Nanak Sahib says:
“Blessed are they who realize their home, O brother.”
Those who reach their true home are forever happy.
Where is our true home?
It is where our almighty Father resides.
So it is through devotion to the Lord
that the soul can attain eternal happiness
and attain freedom from the cycle of birth and death.
This is why Soami Ji says:
Do not be deceived by this world.
You will not be able to find happiness here.
This world is like a night’s dream.
A night’s dream lasts for four, five or six hours,
whereas this dream lasts sixty or seventy years.
Just as a dream has no reality,
this world has no reality.
Everyone is bound to perish one day;
all will cease to exist.
I had mentioned that sons, daughters, relatives –
whomever we see around us – will leave us one day.
Guru Sahib says:
“Without the Lord everything is dross, O saints.”
Apart from the Lord, everything is impure, everything is false;
everyone will eventually forsake us.
This is why Tulsi Sahib says:
“Remove your attention from others
to make room for Him to be seated within.”
You are attached to strangers and in love with them.
If you want the Lord to come and abide in your heart,
then at least you need to make space for Him.
Your heart is filled with the
love and attachment for strangers –
there is no place left for the Lord,
so how can He come to dwell in it?
Guru Nanak Sahib says:
“The whole world sleeps lured by the love of maya,
how can this illusion be removed?”
In this creation, all living things are entangled in
the web of maya, sleeping the sweet sleep of attachment.
Nobody knows about the Lord;
nobody thinks about worshipping the Lord.
This is why Guru Sahib says:
“The false ones love the false
and forsake their Creator.
Then whom shall I befriend,
when the whole world will pass away?”
This body is false –
Soami Ji explains it further –
the world that we are entangled in
is also false; it is bound to perish.
So the false are attached
and in love with the false.
Soami Ji says:
Try to take a close look and
reflect on what is in this world.
Nothing in the world is worthy of your devotion,
of your love and affection;
nothing is worth trying to possess,
because everything will leave you.
The One who really belongs to us –
we do not consider him as our own;
we do not try to make him our own.
Those who share a selfish love with us –
we mistakenly consider them as our own,
whereas they can never belong to us.
This is why we become miserable
in this world and depart from here in misery.
This is why Guru Sahib says:
“The worms of filth abide in filth, commit to filth,
and by filth they are enveloped again.”
Worldly beings are like worms;
we are born in filth, we eat filth,
we collect filth, we live in filth,
and eventually die in it.
We never tried to escape from it,
thus we never experienced fragrance,
nor did we ever realize that we had
spent our entire lives living in this dirt.
We don’t try to possess that
which truly belongs to us.
That is why Soami Ji lovingly explains to us that
we are entangled in this creation, which is like a dream.
Those things that you are attached to
and in love with have no reality.
All these will forsake you one day.
[Do not get lost in the affairs of this world;
think of it as a night’s dream.]
[Your body, your home and family – all are false.
So why entangle yourself in delusion?]
Explaining further, Soami Ji says:
“Both body and home are unreal.”
All the relationships that we have in this
world are established through our body.
As long as we are in this body,
we think of our children and relatives as ours.
We consider our parents as ours,
we think of our friends and siblings as ours.
Race, religion, and country are ours,
wealth and property are ours –
basically, we think that everything belongs to us.
When we leave the body, however,
all these relationships are severed.
The body, on whose account we try to possess
the forms and objects of this world – is it ours?
This too is Kal’s cage; it is a rented house
that belongs to someone else.
Some people are given this home for fifty or sixty years,
others for eighty or ninety years.
When we exhaust the number of breaths allotted to us
by the Lord, each of us must leave this body behind.
For some, the body will be consigned to flames
and for others it will be buried in the ground.
This is why Soami Ji warns us that even
when our own body cannot accompany us,
then just think, how can anything
else in this world go with us?
Our limbs and organs start
giving signals while we are alive,
warning us that they won’t be able to
cooperate with us for too much longer.
Our vision gets blurred;
we can’t breathe properly through our nose;
our stomach does not digest our food,
our voice doesn’t leave our throat.
Our memory fails, our head starts shaking.
Our knees cannot bear our weight,
we need to support them when we get up,
and we cannot move around
without the help of a walking stick.
Our own body parts are giving up while we are alive,
so how can we expect anything
else to stand by us after we die?
This is why Soami Ji says:
You are proud of your body and therefore
you feel that all these things are yours,
but it is your own body that will betray you in the end.
The wealth of this world, the properties,
mills, mansions and so on,
when our ancestors could not take along with them;
when we didn’t allow these land registries
and deeds to remain in their names,
what makes us think that our children
will let them remain in our name?
Therefore, if our ancestors couldn’t possess them,
how will we be able to keep them?
These things will keep changing hands.
If these things could be possessed,
then how would we have inherited them?
People would have reserved them in their names
long ago and would have taken them along with them.
This is why Soami Ji warns us:
What are these things that you consider your own?
The wealth and property for which you
hate one another and fight with one another –
all these things cannot go with anyone at the end;
they will have to be left behind.
He says:
“Why exhaust yourself over an illusion?”
It is all an illusion;
it is all transient and bound to perish.
Soami Ji refers to it as an illusion,
Guru Nanak Sahib refers to it as duality,
Tulsi Sahib speaks of it as ‘others’ –
all saints say the same thing;
none of these things are ours,
we acquired them here and will leave them here.
These things have never and will never belong to anyone.
The saints try to make us understand:
The One who belongs to you,
who can become yours,
whom you should make your own –
consider Him to be your own,
make Him your own.
Develop love for Him, devote yourself to Him,
become one with Him.
Those who do not belong to you,
who never will belong to you,
who cannot belong to you –
why do you wander about chasing them?
Why do you suffer and yearn for them?
[Your body, your home and family – all are false.
So why entangle yourself in delusion?]
[All are led astray by their greed.
No one can escape the clutches of Kal.]
[As they burn in the fire of cravings,
their souls must suffer.]
He gives us a beautiful message.
The Lord may give us anything that we desire in this world,
however we are never satisfied or contented.
If He gives us a hundred thousand, we want a million;
if He gives us a million, we want ten million;
and if He gives us ten million,
then we want a hundred million instead.
If He gives us one beautiful house to stay in,
we still want one house in the mountains.
If He gives us a second house,
we still want one more guest house in Delhi.
So we are never satisfied or contented.
Soami Ji says that the dog of greed
is forever barking within us;
it is never going to be quiet.
This is why Guru Nanak Sahib says:
“Manmukhs are forever hungry and never satiated,
and they crave for more and more.
In love with maya, they are forever chasing her.
One should stay thousands of miles
away from their company.”
Guru Sahib says that the manmukhs
are always craving for more,
and they will continue to remain unsatisfied.
Whenever they fold hands before the Lord,
they beg him to fulfill their worldly desires and cravings.
Whatever Lord has given them –
they never thank Him for that.
He (the manmukh) never looks at those
who are underprivileged.
He never thinks that the Lord has given me
such a beautiful house to live in,
whereas half the people in the world live on the streets.
He has given me such good food to eat,
while there are so many people
who go to sleep hungry at night.
I have so many clothes to wear, while some people
don’t even have a tattered set of clothes to wear.
I have such a good position,
whereas others struggle to even get a clerical job.
Such people are never grateful to the Lord
for what they have received.
Instead, they keep looking at those who are more privileged
and constantly ask for a higher and higher position,
constantly yearning for more power and authority.
This is why Soami Ji says that your mind
will never be satisfied.
The dog of greed within us is constantly barking;
we are always burning in the fire of desires and cravings.
No one’s desires have ever been fulfilled,
nor will they ever be.
In fact, if our desires remain unfulfilled,
they become a cause of suffering for us.
This is why a certain mystic has said:
“Our desires are like mountains –
and death is at our heels.”
Our desires and cravings are higher than the Himalayas,
even though death is at our doorsteps.
We have no idea if we have four or five years left;
we don’t know when we will have to
leave our entire families behind.
This is why Soami Ji says:
“No one can escape the clutches of Kal.”
You will never be able to carry
anything with you beyond death;
you may desire and crave anything,
you may collect whatever you may like,
you are unhappy now,
and will remain so even after death –
none of these things that
you have collected will go with you.
This is why saints say that we must
have patience and contentment.
Whatever the Lord wants to give us,
we will definitely receive,
for He has already inscribed it in our destiny.
Whatever is in our destiny,
we will definitely get it according to our karmas.
We should try to be content and satisfied
with whatever is our destiny,
for the Lord knows what is good
for us and what is bad for us.
This is why Guru Sahib says:
“The Lord knows everything without being told;
so before whom should we make our supplication?”
Who are you pleading and crying to?
The Lord is well aware of what you need.
There is no need to say anything
to him or pray before him.
He knows everything.
If He has the capacity to know,
He also has the capacity to give.
He will give us on His own whatever He deems fit.
So we should try to be patient,
we should try to be content.
Happiness lies in peace and contentment.
This is why he lovingly explains to us
that death is certain for everyone –
you can collect anything you want,
but none of it can be taken with you.
The suffering that you endure while
burning in the fire of your desires and cravings,
is an added misery that you go through.
[As they burn in the fire of cravings,
their souls must suffer.]
[There is no escape for them
and they burn in the fires of hell.]
[Day and night they will burn in this fire,
and will go through birth and death time and again.]
Now, Soami Ji says that those people
who have desires and cravings,
first they are unhappy in this creation,
because these are not fulfilled.
Then, for the desires that the mind had already created,
one has to go to hell or back to this prison
of eighty-four in order to fulfill them.
The Lord gives him a birth at such a place
where he will be able to fulfill all his desires,
but this means that he will have to take another birth.
This is why Guru Sahib says:
“The Giver continues to give even though
the recipients grow weary of receiving.
All through the ages the creation has continued to receive.”
Throughout the ages, since
this creation came into existence,
O Lord, we have come to you with our wants and desires,
and you have been fulfilling them.
What is the result of this?
We continue to be imprisoned in the cycle of eighty-four.
Until we ask the Lord for the Lord himself,
we will never succeed in our devotion to him.
I have given this example many times:
We send our child to play in the care of his nanny.
When the child cries, the nanny
tries everything to make him happy,
sometimes giving him toys or sweets
and sometimes telling him stories.
As long as the child remains happy, the parents
are also carefree, engaged in their own activities.
However, if the child is not consoled with anything,
the parents will run to him and embrace him.
Similarly, as long as we're playing with the toys of this creation,
the Lord does not pay attention to us.
But the moment, we turn away
from everything and focus on Him,
He will shower His grace and unite us with Himself.
This is why Guru Sahib says:
“To ask for anything else but you,
O Lord, is the greatest of all afflictions.”
O my Lord, if we ask for anything
in this creation aside from you,
we're only asking for pain and misery.
Happiness lies in returning to your lap;
happiness lies in union with you.
No one in this world can find
happiness and peace without you.
This is why many saints describe this relationship
as that of a husband and wife.
If the wife is separated from her husband,
you can give her all the luxuries of the world,
but she will never be happy and satisfied.
All she wants is the love of her husband;
she wants to be united with her husband.
The Ramakrishna Mission compares this relationship
with that of a mother and child.
The happiness that the child feels while in his mother’s lap
cannot be compared to the joy of receiving
all the wealth and sovereignty of the world.
Christ speaks of this relationship as that of father and son.
As long as the son is under the protection of his father,
he is carefree – it is the father
who does all the worrying for him.
This is why saints say that if you want
to attain true happiness and peace,
that can only be possible when you
return to the lap of the Father;
once you merge in the love of the Father.
[Day and night they will burn in this fire,
and will go through birth and death time and again.]
[They will continue to wander through the four forms of life,
finding no rest, reaching nowhere.]
[A little I can describe the pains they suffer,
it is simply beyond words.]
[Out of mercy, the Saints and Masters
teach them to practise Nam.]
In order to fulfill these desires and cravings,
we have to come back to this world
and take birth here in a certain life form.
Soami Ji says, just think:
In which life form can you actually
find happiness and peace?
As a sheep, as a chicken or a goat,
whose throats are being slit daily
by the thousands, just to fill our stomachs?
This is why he says:
Look at the condition of those in the human form,
which we refer to as the top of the creation,
as the human form where God resides.
Who is happy in this form of life?
Some are suffering due to disease,
others due to unemployment.
Some do not have children –
just see how these poor people suffer.
Yet others are miserable because of their children.
Some have to collect debts,
others have to pay their debts.
Racial, religious, and national hostilities
follow us wherever we go.
How many poor people are slain,
how many women widowed,
how many children orphaned!
People have to suffer and struggle
simply to find food and clothing.
When life in the human form is so miserable,
how do we expect to find happiness
in any other form of life?
This is why, when saints see our condition,
they see that we have attained the human form
but we are still engulfed by misery.
Soami Ji says that they are moved by our plight.
They are filled with mercy and shower their grace upon us.
Saints see that people have received the human form
after so much difficulty, through many good deeds,
and with the immense grace of the Lord,
but they are wasting it away in worthless pursuits.
People lose their opportunity by entangling themselves
in sensual pleasures and negative tendencies.
So they provide us with a means, a way,
to help us escape from this world.
Why is the word ‘mercy’ used here?
Because the saints are not here
to establish a religion, race, or country.
They are not here to amass property
or to collect gold and silver.
All they want is our benefit, our welfare.
This is why Guru Nanak Sahib has used the terms:
Namdan (the gift of the Name)
or gur parshad (the guru’s blessing)
He who gives you a gift does not ask for its payment.
He who gives you a blessing gives it from the heart –
he gives it freely; he doesn’t put a value to it.
Thus the saints shower their grace and mercy upon us
and show us the way to escape from this world.
What is the method that they have taught us?
They explain to us that the Lord whom you wish to meet,
whom you wish to unite with so that
you can escape from the bondage of the body
that Lord is within your own body, within this human form.
Our spiritual journey begins at the soles of the feet
and ends at the crown of the head.
There are two stages in the journey:
the first is up to the eyes,
the second is above the eyes.
The saints explain to us the method to tread the
spiritual path that lies within this human body.
This path leads us to our ultimate destination,
and grants us freedom from the bondage of the body.
The saints have referred to this method
as the practice of Nam
or the practice of surat Shabd within –
this is what all saints speak of.
By ‘practice’ of Nam, the saints mean to say that
we should connect our attention
to the Nam of the Lord.
The Lord though, has no name;
we can remember Him by any name.
All saints have praised that Shabd, that Nam,
but Soami Ji has gone into great detail
to explain what the saints mean by Shabd, by Nam.
Soami Ji says that one Nam is the attributive name.
All the names that we have coined
for the Lord out of our love for Him,
that can be written, read or spoken –
such as Allah, Waheguru, Hari Om, Almighty God, etc. –
Guru Sahib has referred to them as descriptive names.
We can trace the history of each word
and its period or time of its usage.
Some of these names originated a hundred years ago,
some five hundred years ago,
and some originated six or seven hundred years ago.
Before then one would not have heard
of these names even in history.
But the Nam that saints praise
cannot be written, read or spoken.
The Great Master used to call it
‘the unwritten law’, ‘the unspoken language’,
and Christ referred to it when he said:
“Having eyes ye see not, having ears ye hear not.”
In spite of having eyes, you are unable to see it;
in spite of having ears you cannot hear it.
Guru Sahib says:
“To see without eyes, to hear without ears,
to walk without feet, to work without hands,
and to speak without tongue.
Thus one remains dead whilst alive.
O Nanak, understanding His hukam,
one meets the husband-Lord.”
When you contact the hukam, the Shabd or Nam,
you will find the beloved Lord,
who has never been seen with these outer eyes –
this means that it is a different eye
that beholds His Nam.
He cannot be heard with these ears –
those are different ears which tune in
to the resonances of the Shabd.
He cannot be described with this tongue,
grasped with these hands, written with these hands,
or approached by these feet.
He is attained by dying while living.
Dying while living, as I have said many times, means
withdrawing the attention from the nine doors of the body
and collecting it behind the eyes.
Guru Sahib says:
“There are nine gates in the body,
the tenth leads to liberation,
wherein resounds the ceaseless Shabd.”
Below the eyes, my friends,
lie the pleasures of the senses,
negative tendencies and sensual pleasures,
whereas the Lord has placed
the gateway to liberation behind your eyes.
What is the sign to recognize this door?
“… the ceaseless Shabd resounds.”
The eternal music of the Shabd is
resounding within everyone at this point.
That sweet and most melodious sound
emanating from the court of the Lord
is present in everyone – in thieves and swindlers,
in saints and enlightened beings.
The question of race, religion, or
nationality does not arise there.
Whether one is Hindu, Sikh, or Christian,
anyone can go within.
Anyone who is blessed with the good fortune
of being able to collect his attention
one-pointed at the eye centre,
can hear the pure Sound, the divine Melody,
the resonance of the Shabd,
and experience its light and brilliance.
This is why Soami Ji says:
“Let your surat dwell at the eye centre.
Concentrate there with one-pointed attention.
Focus your nirat on the light there,
and all duality will vanish from your mind.”
When you are able to withdraw
your attention from the nine portals of the body
and collect it at the eye centre, you will rise
above duality and enter the state of oneness.
There you see the light and
that you have to behold within.
That Shabd, that Nam which Soami Ji is praising,
has sound as well as light –
it has brilliance within itself.
We should try and attune our consciousness to that Shabd.
Saints have praised the Shabd
in all scriptures and holy books.
When we read these scriptures,
we are inspired to practise devotion to Nam;
we also learn the method by which
we can come in touch with it –
but that Shabd, that Nam, is within our body –
it is not in the scriptures.
We will not find it in temples, mosques, gurdwaras,
or churches; we won’t find it in satsangs –
we can only find it within our own body,
within this human frame.
Thus, the saints teach us how –
through the help of simran and dhyan –
we can withdraw our scattered attention
from the nine doors of the body
and bring it back to the eye centre,
where we should attune it with that Shabd, that Nam.
The sweetness of the Shabd is so great
that when the mind comes in touch with it,
it is automatically detached from the love of the world.
It is our attachment and love for the world
that keeps bringing us back
again and again into the bondage of the body.
When one gives up attachment and love for the world
and awakens love for the Lord in its place,
the soul automatically goes back
and merges with the Lord.
This is why Guru Sahib has said:
“The Nam of the Lord is sweet nectar.”
The Lord’s Nam is nectar and is saturated with sweetness.
We call it sweet because everything that we enjoy
in this world – the love of our children,
our craving for issues of race, faith, and nation;
the enjoyments of wealth and property,
the pleasures of food and drink –
all appear insipid by comparison.
One who finds diamonds and precious stones does not
go from door to door begging for worthless trinkets.
Young girls play with dolls until they get married.
That attachment will automatically
detach us from the world permanently.
This is why Soami Ji lovingly explains to us
that the saints connect our consciousness
to that Shabd, that Nam.
They do not come here to establish a religion, race,
or country, nor are they here to acquire wealth.
They support themselves through their own earnings
and at the same time, serve their disciples.
So Soami Ji says that we should keep the company
of the saints and devote ourselves to Shabd, to Nam.
[Out of mercy, the Saints and Masters
teach them to practise Nam.]
[But they do not accept their method
of practising Surat Shabd.]
Soami Ji says with great regret that the saints
always preach the way of Shabd, of Nam –
they try to draw us away from
ritualistic practices and external forms of worship.
But the people of the world are
so entangled in these external observances
they don’t wish to engage themselves
in the practice of surat-Shabd.
They think that liberation is attained
by taking dips in holy waters,
by reading and reciting the scriptures,
by bowing at the tombs of past saints, by idol worship.
But what saints repeatedly advocate is
to practise connecting one’s surat with Shabd.
Soami Ji says: “Apply yourself to the practice
of surat Shabd, discarding all other efforts.”
All we need to do is to try and attune
our consciousness to the Shabd;
we must remove our attention from all else.
Soami Ji refers to these as ‘false rituals and deeds.’
This is why Soami Ji says that
people are busy churning water;
nobody knows about churning milk.
Soami Ji has openly stated that whatever we are to receive
will come only through meditation on Shabd, on Nam.
But we worldly people have a strange kind of wisdom –
we do not follow what saints preach,
but we will definitely bow before their sandals;
we will pray in front of their pictures;
we will build their tombs and prostrate before them;
we create sites of pilgrimage and visit there.
We worship the beds they sleep in;
we drink water from the wells they built;
we circle around their homes.
But we never pay attention to the teachings
that they spread for fifty or sixty years,
to practise connecting our surat with Shabd.
This is why Soami Ji says with regret
that the saints have left no stone unturned
in trying to explain their teachings to us.
In fact, they have spent their entire lives trying to
take us out of these illusions and misconceptions,
and lovingly inspire us to engage in meditation of Shabd.
This is why Guru Nanak Sahib says:
“Cross the sea of material existence
by repeating Nam, O Nanak.”
My friend, you will only be able
to cross this ocean of existence
when you connect your soul with the Shabd.
Guru Sahib says:
“Then one applies one’s surat to Shabd,
and to the Lord’s service.”
When you meditate on that Shabd,
you will be able to attach your attention to the Lord
and detach it from love and affection for the world.
After the departure of a saint, however, we turn
outwards and become involved in external practices.
This is why Baba Ji [Baba Jaimal Singh]
had given special instructions to his sevadars
not to build anything on the site
where he was to be cremated,
because during his lifetime he had witnessed
how people had built a shrine for Soami Ji,
and had gone far away from the teachings.
The Great Master also made sure
to get a promise from Rai Sahib,
that nothing would be built
in his memory once he departed.
In fact, when the last rites were performed
for Baba Ji [Baba Jaimal Singh],
the next morning people tried
to go the site to collect his remains,
but the previous night the river had flooded
and had swept everything away –
there was no trace left of the site
where the cremation had taken place.
And during the Great Master’s time –
his disciples are also sitting here –
after eight or nine days, an intense dust storm swept in;
nobody could tell where the bamboo poles or the flags
that were surrounding the area had gone.
Some people said that the cremation
had taken place at this spot,
while others argued that it was at that spot –
no one was ever able to trace where it had happened.
Today we do not even know if
the river is flowing through that place,
or if it has been turned into farmland.
Even Sardar Bahadur had left
clear instructions to Rai Sahib.
He said: Listen carefully, I have already taken a bath –
do not bathe me after this.
Do not change my clothes, do not wait, and
do not build anything in remembrance of me.
Saints do this so that we do not
turn to outer forms of worship;
so that we do not start bowing
before their tombs or shrines.
When we get entangled in external observances,
we slowly drift far from the teachings of the saints.
Soami Ji’s teachings clearly impress upon us
that whatever we are to attain will be
through the worship of Shabd, of Nam.
This is why Soami Ji says here that all you should
do is to connect your attention to the Shabd.
[But they do not accept their method
of practising Surat Shabd.]
[Without a true Master and without practising his teachings,]
[there is no escape from wandering from one form to another.]
He explains the entire teachings
of Sant Mat in this one line:
Without the company of saints
and without devotion to Nam,
you may try any other method
but you will never be able to attain freedom
from the bondage of the body.
Guru Sahib has also said:
“Through the true Shabd one obtains true honour.
Without Nam, no one attains emancipation.
Without the true Guru, no one unites with Nam.
Such is the system which the Lord has established.”
The Lord has made this his natural law:
Union with Him can only be achieved
through the help of the saints,
through devotion to Shabd, devotion to Nam.
There is no other method or technique
through which we can attain union with the Lord.
[Without a true Master and without practising his teachings,]
[there is no escape from wandering from one form to another.]
[How much more can I can explain to them?
No one accepts the teachings.]
[Being manmukhs – they wander in distress,
but never accept the Master’s teachings.]
This is why Soami Ji says:
Who listens to the humble plea of the saints
amidst the clamour of this world?
If you think and reflect on the teachings
of the saints with an unbiased mind,
you will see that all saints have openly
proclaimed devotion to Shabd, to Nam.
In spite of this, man is forever entangled
in outward forms of worship and ritualistic practices.
This is why Soami Ji says with regret that there is
no dearth of advice offered by the saints,
but people are still trapped in brick and stones,
in holy waters, in paper,
in places of pilgrimage and mountains.
They do not try to grasp the reality.
This is why Soami Ji says that we spend
our entire lives entangled in false rituals and deeds.
[Being manmukhs – they wander in distress,
but never accept the Master’s teachings.]
[Instead of devoting themselves to a Master,
they make others worship them in the world.]
Even if we go to meet the saints and mystics,
we go there to get praised.
We expect the saints to praise us and cater to our needs,
but we do not follow their teachings;
we do not engage in the service that is asked of us.
The saints engage us in seva,
so that we may develop humility within ourselves.
They do not gain anything from us;
they are here as givers,
and not as beggars, to ask for themselves.
We are the ones who benefit from them.
This is why the Sikh Gurus started
the tradition of langar (free kitchen).
They created several opportunities for seva through the langar,
like gathering wood for the kitchen or carrying water.
So we develop humility within us;
it allows us to put our hands and feet to good use,
to create the spirit of brotherhood among all,
to help us rise above the distinctions of caste and religion,
of rich and poor, to give due respect to another person
and engage in devotion to the Lord.
But even while doing seva, we want praise and recognition;
we try to fortify our ego.
This is why Soami Ji says:
How much more foolish can one be?
[Instead of devoting themselves to a Master,
they make others worship them in the world.]
[They are not worried about their own souls;
they will have to burn in the fires of hell.]
[Radha Soami says his teachings:
Understand them, plant them firmly in your mind.]
After explaining everything,
Soami Ji gives us one message:
Follow the real teachings and try to
connect your soul to the Shabd.
Whatever you are to attain will be
through devotion to Shabd, to Nam.
This is why he says:
“The Master says explicitly:
attach yourself to the unstruck music of Shabd;
other than through the Shabd, there is no way
to break free from the vessel of the body.”
Soami Ji says: Remember this clearly,
apart from devotion to Shabd, to Nam,
there is no other method to
escape from the prison of the body.
Therefore, we should also try to take advantage of his teachings
and connect our attention to the Shabd, to Nam.
[Radha Soami says his teachings:
Understand them, plant them firmly in your mind.]
