THE JEWEL OF HAPPINESS
The Sukhmani of Guru Arjan
a commentary by
AJAIB SINGH
Chapter 23
"WHERE WILL ALL THE GARBAGE BE?"
When the Master gives someone the mascara of Knowledge,
the darkness of ignorance is removed.
Nanak says, He who meets the Saint with the grace of the
Master gets enlightened within.
In this Ashtapadi Guru Arjan Dev Ji Maharaj describes the glory of the
Master. He asks, "What does the Master give to the disciple? What is the
benefit to the disciple in using what the Master has given him?" Because
we are stuck in the darkness of ignorance very badly, we need some light
which will clear our way. Master gives us that ointment - lampblack or
mascara - by putting which in our eyes we can remove the disease and see
the inner thing. When anybody has a problem with his eyes, he goes to a
doctor and the doctor gives him some medicine to put in his eye and that
removes whatever is blocking the vision. Guru Arjan Dev is calling that
medicine "mascara." He says, "My Master gave me the mascara of the Truth;
by putting it in my eyes the darkness of ignorance was removed and I was
able to see what was happening within." When the Master gives His Naam
and we use it, when we apply that medicine of the Master to ourself, when
we manifest that Naam within, then the darkness of ignorance is cleared up
and we see Light within. Then we are able to see the arrangements which
are made by God, and our inner path becomes open to us, as clear as an
open book, and we know for sure what is happening within.
So here the Master is saying that we have got that lampblack of
Knowledge from the Master. He says, "We are not able to achieve that
lampblack, we are not able to remove the darkness of ignorance from
within. By our merits, we could not do anything; it was the Grace of
the Master, Who made the inner Path clear to us."
In the company of the Saints God is seen within.
The Naam of Lord tastes sweet.
What did we get after going in the company of the Saints and the Mahatmas?
He says that by going in their company we were able to see God within us.
We were looking for Him outside but when we manifested the Lord and we
saw Him within, His Naam was so delicious that we did not want to taste
the worldly pleasures because they were tasteless in front of the Naam.
Guru Ramdas Ji says, "In our within is the desire to realize God, now
whatever words of the Master we hear, they pierce in our heart like an
arrow."
All that exists is only within One:
All the different colors and forms.
Before going to the Masters perhaps some of us used to think that people
of different races and different countries were made by different gods. We
might have thought that people from America were made by one god and people
from India by another. But when we went into the company of the Masters and
our inner veil was lifted and we saw God within, we understood, we realized,
that God is the only Creator of all the creatures. Before this creation was
created all souls were one with Him; when this creation is dissolved, then
all the souls have to go back and become one with God.
One Mahatma says, "Whatever exists in the Brahmand, exists in your
body also. Those who search for it, realize it."
The nectarful Naam of Lord is the Nine Treasures.
It dwells within the human body.
Naam is the owner of all treasures, and He is the Emperor of all Peace.
Naam is the greatest Peace-giver in this creation. And it is not a word
of any language: it is neither written in Punjabi nor Hindi nor English;
it is not in any language. Where is that Naam? It is within our body; and
Masters come in this world to connect us with that Naam.
The sunna samadhi and the Sound are within;
The wondrous ecstasy cannot be described.
When we cross Daswan Dwar, after shaking off our physical, astral and
causal covers from our body, we come to the sunna plane and there the pure
sound, the Sar Shabd, is coming. He says, "The glory of Sar Shabd cannot
be described, it can be experienced by the soul; hearing that Shabd the
soul becomes intoxicated."
Only the one to whom He shows it sees it
And realizes Him, says Nanak.
Can you solve this problem by yourself? Can we see God by reading books and
other things? No. Only that one can see God to whom God is gracious, whom
God wants to see Himself, and whom God makes realize Him.
The Limitless One exists inside and outside.
God pervades everything.
When we see God within, and when we manifest Him in our own self, we know
for sure that He is limitless and nobody can reach His limits. But only
when we have seen Him within can we say outside, also, that His glory
cannot be described. He is limitless but still He is present in every
individual soul.
He is present on the earth, sky, and the world below water.
He is the sustenance in all regions.
The creatures who are living on earth are protected by God and He gives
food to them. The creatures who are living in the sky are also protected
and nourished by Him. And the creatures who are living in the world below
are also nourished and protected by the same God.
In the forests, in the grass and in mountains
is present the Supreme Being.
As He orders, so they act.
The same God is present in the fields, in the forest and even in the
mountains.
In wind, water and fire:
He is present in all four quarters
and ten directions.
God is in the air, God is in the fire, God is in the water, God is every-
where. His power is extended, He is working in all the four directions.
There is no place without Him.
Nanak says, One gets happiness with the
grace of Master.
There is no creature without the presence of God within, but when can
we understand this? When can we reach that country of peace? Only when
Master showers Grace on us and we go into the company of the Perfect Master.
He is seen in Vedas, Puranas, Simritis;
God alone is present in the moon, sun and the stars.
His importance is written in the Vedas and Puranas, also in the holy
scriptures. And they all say that in the moon and sun His Light is
manifested. Even in the stars His Light is twinkling.
All speak the Bani of God;
He is stable and never wavers.
He is sitting within each of us and from there He is calling all the souls
to come back. Guru Nanak says, "The Lord is stable - He is not shaky - and
those who do His devotion become as stable as God is."
Through all His powers He plays the play.
His qualities are Invaluable, their worth
cannot be assessed.
God is perfect and competent in all powers. If anyone says that he can
buy God, that is not possible: He is priceless. One Mahatma says, "If
God could be achieved by bathing in the water, then the frogs and fishes
would have realized Him. If God could be achieved only by cleverness and
wisdom, the ignorant would have remained without Him. If God could be
achieved by riches, then the poor people would not have any chance to
realize Him." He says, "God cannot be realized by wisdom, cleverness or
riches, He can be realized by one attachment, and that is Love: which we
can get from the Masters."
His light is within all the lights.
He supports all, like warp and weft in the cloth.
In all life His Life is present, in all creatures His Light is working. He
is present in everything in this world, as the thread is in the piece of
cloth, and the cloth is in the thread. He is present everywhere like that.
By the grace of the Master the illusion is destroyed.
They develop this firm faith, says Nanak.
Now He says that with Master's Grace, with Master's Help, and by doing the
meditation of Naam which was given to us by the Master, the illusion which
we have is removed, and now we have faith in this judgment: that God is
the only Creator and Protector and Nourisher of all the souls, and He is
present everywhere. The soul will get peace only by meeting God and by
becoming one with God; ever since the soul was separated from God she has
never experienced any happiness. "O brothers, without the Masters, you can
never have any knowledge. If you don't believe us, go and ask Ved Vyas,
Brahma and Narada."
The Saints have the vision that God is present everywhere;
Within the heart of Saints are all religions.
With which kind of glance do the Masters help? Wherever the Masters look
they see God present in everyone. That is why they respect all the religions.
Saints do not criticize any religion, any faith or community, and they do
not even criticize any person. That is why they always respect every
religion and every person. The only difference between their practice and
the practice of the religions is that they do not get involved in the rites
and rituals which most of the religions practice; and they never tell their
disciples to get involved in those rites and rituals.
If a woman's husband goes to a foreign land, but she continues to dress
up and make herself beautiful as if he were there, what will people say?
They will say that she does not have a good character - "why is she
dressing up, and who is she trying to please when her husband is gone?"
In the same way, when we do rites and rituals in the name of God, we
say we are trying to please God. But God is not present there, and we have
not seen God. Guru Nanak says, "Doing rites and rituals is like a woman
dressing up when her husband is away. She does not get any honor in this
world, and her husband does not accept her devotion."
Whenever Saints and Mahatmas come into this world they emphasize the
practice of Surat Shabd Yoga. They teach the message of Shabd Naam. You can
read any scripture, any holy book written by any Mahatma, and you will find
that he has practiced and taught the same thing. And always people from
different religions come to the Perfect Saints and become Their disciples.
When the Saints and Mahatmas leave this world, what happens? Their
disciples collect the teachings of the Masters and do not read the
teachings of the Masters to the people. Instead of that they start preaching
their own things, and they color the spiritual teachings of the Masters in
the color of religion, and make the teachings of the Masters as principles
of that religion. In that way the teachings of the Masters, which once
belonged to the whole universe, are limited only to a certain group of
people. And in that way they do not do many spiritual practices after the
Master leaves the body. Only a few people are left who can be called
"practical"; the other people, the intellectual or learned people who have
the knowledge of those teachings, remain and they do not practice and they
do not preach the teachings in their right sense. I will say that those who
act like this after their Master has left the body are doing a grave sin.
The Saints have the virtuous words.
They remain absorbed in the All-Pervading Lord.
Saints themselves utter the precious words, and they tell the disciples
also to deal lovingly with all. Saints are themselves absorbed with God,
they are one with God. That is why they tell the disciples also to rise
above the level of mind and the organs of senses and to become one with
the all-pervading God Who is present everywhere.
He who has realized the truth lives like this:
That the Saints utter true words only.
This bani is written by that Mahatma Who had appreciation of the Sadhus.
He says that Sadhus never say from hearsay; they mention only what they
have seen with their own eyes.
Whatever happens, he accepts that as happiness:
He understands that God is the Doer and One Who makes
others do.
Mahatmas do not become equal with God; they are the dear children of God.
Whether they get good food or bad food, whether they get pain or happiness,
they accept that as the Will of God: they never complain, they never turn
against the Will of God, they accept it happily.
When Guru Arjan Dev Ji, whose bani we are reading, was being tortured
in the city of Lahore, He was made to sit on the hot coals. At that time
Mian Mir, a Muslim friend of Guru Arjan who was very devoted to him, came,
and he saw that Guru Arjan Dev's body was burning - he had burns all over
his body and he was sitting on hot coals - and he said, "O Gurudev, what
is your condition? If you will let me do it, I will raze the city of Lahore
to the ground." Guru Arjan Dev replied, "Mian Mir, I can also do that; but
it is a very good thing to remain happy in the Will of God." Then he said,
"O Lord, I like your Will; the Will of God is very sweet for me. Nanak
always asks for the gift of Naam."
God lives within all and outside also;
All those who have His darshan are fascinated,
says Nanak.
God, Who lives within us, is present everywhere outside also. Wherever we
look we see the same God. And Mahatmas say that God has attracted all the
world by His darshan. Mahatmas see Him everywhere.
Guru Nanak says, "O Lord, if You had any equal, if there was some
other God, only then could it be said that there are two."
He Himself is the Truth, whatever He has done is Truth;
The entire creation is made by God alone.
Whatever God has done, it is Truth-He Himself is Truth. Whatever we see
with our eyes-all this creation - was created by God Himself. He didn't
have anybody else to create it.
If He wishes, He expands;
If He wishes, He becomes One again.
If God wishes, He expands into the creation, and when it comes in the
Will of God, He brings back everything and only He remains.
He has countless powers, no one can estimate them.
Whomsoever He wishes, He unites with Himself.
No one can estimate the Power of God; no one can say how many powers God
has. But when He is pleased with someone, it does not make any difference
to which caste or religion that person belongs, God unites him to Himself.
There is no question as to whether one is man or woman; all those
who do His devotion, and with whom God is pleased, are accepted by God.
Who can be called close or far
When He is all pervading?
God is within everyone; so how can we say that God is nearer to this one
and farther from that one? Water is everywhere in the earth under the ground.
But only those who dig out a well can get that water. In the same way, those
who manifest God, those who see God within, only they can become one with
God.
The one whom He makes realize His presence within -
Nanak says, To that one God Himself gives the realization.
God Himself inspires the soul, and tells her, "I am sitting within you
in this form, and if you want to meet Me, do this and you will come to
Me." It is God Who inspires the souls, and brings the soul in contact
with the Master; and Master connects her with Naam.
God works in all beings;
He is the watcher through everyone's eyes.
God is the owner of all creation, and He sees through the eyes of everyone.
This means that in the eyes of everyone the Light of God is working.
The whole creation is His body.
He Himself hears His praises.
All bodies are made by Him; He glorifies His own Self, and He Himself
listens to it. It means that on the tongue also His power is working, and
in the ears also His power is working, and He is listening to what is said.
He made coming and going as a play
In which He cast Maya as his servant.
The coming and going - births and deaths - this is all a play which He has
made, and in order to continue this play, He made Maya as a servant; and
He told Maya and the other gods - the other powers - "You will have to do
this work." Whatever is happening in this world is happening with the
orders of the Almighty Lord.
He lives in all and yet remains detached from all:
Whatever He wants to say, He Himself says.
In a very beautiful way He is sitting within everyone, and whatever He
wants to have said, He Himself says - sitting within the people.
The soul comes in His orders, goes in His orders;
Nanak says, He merges the one with whom He is pleased
into His Own Self.
The soul comes to this world with the orders of the Lord, and the soul
goes from this world with the orders of the Lord. If God wishes, the
soul goes back into God.
Nothing bad is done by Him;
Who else can do this?
Whatever God does, He does for good. He never does anything bad; whatever
He does, He does for the benefit of the people.
He is noble; His deeds are noble;
He Himself knows about His Soul.
God is noble; He is good; and He knows about the requirements of the soul.
He knows who wants what. If we have the burning desire to realize God, God
will bring us into the contact of the Master, even if the Master is living
thousands of miles away from us; but if we don't have the burning desire
to realize God, then no matter if Master is living right in our
neighborhood, we will never come to Him or ask for Naam - initiation.
He has adopted Truth, He is All Truth;
He has blended Himself with His creation.
His conditions and limits cannot be described;
It would be possible to understand only if
someone else were like Him.
We cannot describe the glory of God. He is perfect by Himself: He does
not have any equal. He does not have any brother or any relatives, so how
can we go and ask anyone about His glory? Since there is no one equal to
Him; since there is nobody else like Him, how can we pray to anyone except
Him? We should pray only to the Almighty Lord.
All His doings are acceptable;
By the grace of Master one understands this,
says Nanak.
Whatever God has done is done for good, and it is all true. This
understanding has come to us only with the Grace of our Master.
The one who knows Him ever remains in Happiness;
God unites him with Himself.
Those who learn about God, and who get some understanding of God, they
catch peace and happiness forever, and the pain of the births and deaths
which they have always had is now removed; and they have no other pain.
The one in whose heart the Lord resides
is truly wealthy:
He is of high family and honorable,
and is liberated while living.
In this world, only the one within whom God is manifested is the rich
one, the one belonging to a high family. He is the only one who has the
honor of the world. He is liberated while living, and his coming into
this world was worthwhile. Blessed is his coming into this world; He got
liberation for His own self, and helped others also to get it. Blessed
is the disciple who goes to the feet of the Master and surrenders himself
to Him. Blessed is the Satguru who meditated on the Naam. Those who saw
Him got liberation. He Himself was liberated, and those who saw Him also
got liberation. Blessed is the family, blessed is the mother, who gives
birth to such a Master. Blessed is the Satguru who did the devotion of
Naam and those who saw Him, they also got liberation.
Blessed, Blessed, Blessed is that Person
By whose grace the whole world is liberated.
Now Guru Arjan Dev Ji Maharaj says, "Hail, hail, to that person who came
into this world by Whose Grace the whole world gets liberation." Mahatmas
do not come in this world for a few people or for some communities. If all
the world goes with the Mahatma, God is not going to question Him, "Why did
you bring all these souls with you?" If the whole world stands in front of
the Master, saying that they want to go back, then He can take them, and
nobody will ask Him why. But the Negative Power does not let this happen.
That is why only a few people, which we can count on our fingertips, come
to the Master.
Once Narada told Lord Krishna. "O Lord, if people from the mortal
world come and live in your heavens, it is not going to be crowded. Why
don't You let them come? They are suffering so much, and You should shower
your Grace on them." Lord Krishna smiled and said, "Well, Narada, I give
you the authority that all those who come with you can live here." Narada
was very happy that God was pleased with him, and that he would be able
to release many souls from their sufferings.
So when he came into this mortal world, he went everywhere, and
eventually he went to a pig, who seemed to him to be suffering very much.
So he asked the pig if he wanted to go to heaven. The pig asked Narada one
question: "Will I be able to have children in heaven?" Narada said, "Well,
if you still have to bother with children, what is the use of going there?
In heaven there is nothing like that." So the pig asked Narada again, "Well,
tell me! Will I get this garbage to eat in heaven?" Narada replied, "Well,
if you still have to eat garbage there, how would it be heaven? It would be
better to remain here." Hearing that, the pig became so upset with Narada
that he started running after him, saying, "You are a foolish person and
you are trying to fool me. How can you call a place "heaven" where you
don't have the happiness of children, and when you can't get garbage to
eat?" So Narada was very sad, and he came back to Lord Krishna. He couldn't
bring even a single soul from the mortal world to live in heaven.
So when Lord Krishna saw him, he said, "Narada, what happened? Why
didn't you bring anyone?" He said, "Lord, what can I say? Everywhere I
went in the world I saw suffering. One person is suffering because he
doesn't have a good job; another is suffering because he has a good job
but he is not satisfied with it; somebody is suffering because he has
loaned some money to people, and he is not getting it back; somebody is
suffering because he has borrowed money and is unable to pay it back;
some people are unhappy because they have become husbands; some people
are unhappy because they had a wife, and now the wife has left; and so
forth. Everybody is unhappy in one or another way. But nobody wants to
leave the world!"
In the same way, when the Masters come into this world, they have
this boon from the Almighty Lord; They always pray, "O Lord, shower
grace on the souls so that they may come back from the suffering world
and become one with You." And the Almighty always tells the Mahatmas, "I
will welcome all those who come with you." So when the Masters come in
this world, they give this message of the Almighty Lord to every single
soul who comes in contact with Him. They say, "Come on! We will take you
to that country of peace where there is no birth, no death, where there
is no pain, no problems; where you will live in the light of the Shabd,
and where you will have a peaceful and happy life. There you will not
have to have enmity for anyone, you will not be anyone's enemy; there
is complete love and Light of God there."
But when Mahatmas tell us that we should follow Them, that we should
obey Them, in order to get released from the suffering world - what to
speak about doing what they are saying! We are not even ready to listen
to them. That is why, like Narada, the Masters feel sadness when the
people from this world are not ready to go to Them.
Many times I have told this story about Sunder Das, an initiate of
Baba Sawan Singh, who used to live with me. When he left the body, all
three Masters-Baba Sawan Singh, Baba Jaimal Singh and Master Kirpal
Singh - came to take his soul, and many people were present when he left
the body. When he was about to leave the body, I was called, because he
was in another room. When I went to him, I asked him if he had any
worldly desires. (Six months before this, he had told me that he was
going to leave on a certain day, and I should prepare his coffin
beforehand. So I had bought all the things and they were with him.)
So, when he was about to leave the body, I asked him, "Sunder Das, do
you have any desire of the world? Do you want anything?" He said, "No,
I don't have any desire, I don't want anything - except one thing: that
my sister should also be taken at the same time that I am." He had one
sister that was older than him; he was ninety years old when he left
the body, and his sister was a little bit older. She was very much in
pain, suffering a lot because of her old age; she didn't have Naam
initiation, and she had become so weak that she was not able to walk
without the support of a stick. So when Sunder Das was about to leave
the body he told me, "It will not make any difference to the Master to
shower grace on my sister, but if she can also be released at the same
time, I will leave peacefully: I am worried about her." So when he said
this, I looked at that old woman and asked her "Are you ready to go?"
When she heard that I was asking her whether she was ready to go with
Sunder Das or not, whether she was ready to leave this world or not,
she at once - with a lot of pain - got up somehow, and tried to stop
Sunder Das from requesting me about taking her, and she left the room,
because she didn't want to leave. And after that, Sunder Das left the
body peacefully.
That old lady spent the rest of her time in great pain, and she left
the body with a lot of pain. At that time when Sunder Das was asking for
his sister's liberation, she was also in pain, but she was not ready to
leave this world.
Once there was an old woman whose daughter became sick, and that
old woman always used to pray, "O Lord, take me from this world instead
of my daughter, because I am old, and I have seen this world a lot, and
I don't have any interest in living," and things like that. Once it so
happened that one cow wandered into the house and was looking for food.
Somehow she got her head stuck in one big pot with a black bottom. When
the cow's head was in the pot, she could not see anything, and she rushed
here and there frantically; she was afraid. When that old woman saw her,
she thought that it was the angel of death, and she at once said, "No,
no, I am not the person whom you should take - she is lying in that bed!"
From outside we may say that we are ready to go, but when the time comes,
it is seen that nobody is ready to go.
The object of the coming of such a person is
That in His company one remembers Naam.
What is the point of our going to the beloved of God? By going in the
company of the beloved of God, we, the wandering ones, also remember God,
and we also start doing His devotion. As the iron floats on the surface
of the water, being accompanied by wood, in the same way, when we go in
the company of the Master, we also get liberation.
He Himself is liberated, He liberates the world.
Nanak says, I always bow to such a person.
The Mahatma is a liberated one, and those who go to Him, they also become
liberated ones. Mahatmas make them do the meditation of Shabd Naam, and
liberate them. That is why Guru Nanak says, "O, beloveds of God, your
coming in this world was worth it; you are the blessed ones because,
giving one particle of Naam, you liberated the whole world." Master Sawan
Singh used to say that one generation of an initiate gets liberation, and
many generations of those initiates who do meditation, get liberated; and
one hundred and one generations of Gurumukhs get liberation; and the Param
Sants - the Perfect Masters who come into this world - liberate many
generations as well as everyone in their Sangat.
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