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How Naam is reached (i)
Through
the pure and simple grace of God: Naam would sink deep into the heart of one
whom God would like to be blessed with.
*127 GURU AMAR DAS He alone gets to Naam, as
God may go ordain. *128 GURU
ARJAN There is no treasure greater
than Naam, There comes through the
grace of God. *129 GURU
AMAR DAS (ii)
Through
ordination of God: Such alone get attached with
Hari Naam who are so ordained by God; for they get peace and hear within them
the unceasing Divine Melody. *130 GURU
AMAR DAS Naam means and includes the
merit of all Japas, Tapas and orderly living,
for without Naam there cannot be purification of the mind, It is in the fullness of
time that one gets hold of the Divine Link of Naam and merges into it. *131 GURUA
MAR DAS O Nanak! it is with mighty
good fortune that one gets Naam. *132 He alone engages in Naam who
is so destined. *133 GURUA
MAR DAS (iii)
Through
the grace of Sant Satguru or one established in or grounded in Naam: Through Naam the whole
creation came into being. The experience of ambrosial
Naam comes through a Satguru. *134 Whatever Thou doest, that
alone is true. The nectar of Naam is
bestowed by a Satguru. *135 GURU
NANAK None but the Satguru is the
munificent Lord, For He gives us the support
of Naam. *136 GURUA MAR DAS Worship Naam is full faith
and devotion, O Nanak! this can be done
with the Sadh. *137 GURU
ARJAN Life originates only from
life. A living Master and no ones else
can transmit a life-impulse to others.
The sages and seers have always emphasized that Naam should be made
manifest within by whoever may be able to do it; and then the experience
obtained from the competent Master-soul must be developed. Go wherever thou wilt to get
contact with the Divine Link, And then with the grace of
the Guru develop this experience. *139 GURU
NANAK A Muslim divine says the
same thing: Should you like to go one a
Haj (pilgrimage to Mecca), take with you a Haji (one who has been to Mecca) for
a guide, no matter if he be a Hindu, a Turk, or an Arab. For an experience of the
Divine Link it is necessary to contact a Sant Satguru, for he alone can explain
the theory and grant a practical demonstration of the Reality within each one
of us. The charged words of the Master,
his magnetic influence and the life-giving rays emanating from him, quickly
help in withdrawal of the sensory currents from the body; for unless the
spirit, surging downwards and rushing headlong into the world through the
outgoing faculties, is concentrated at its own seat, behind the two eyebrows,
it cannot reflect upon itself. It is a
practical experience of self-analysis or separating the inner man (Soul or the
higher self) from the outer man (lower self consisting of mind and material
body). By force of age-old habits we
are unfortunately clinging to the outerman and are reveling all the time in the
outer world with which we have identified ourselves. There is a regular process of inversion or receding, tapping
inside, as Emerson puts it, or conversion into a little child, as Christ called
it; and none but an adept on the spiritual path can help in cutting the Gordian
Knot and separating the spirit, fir a while, from the mind and outgoing
faculties. It is, in other words, a supramental
experience of the spirit on a super-sensual plane and can successfully be
imparted by a Master-soul. This
experiment cannot be practically performed by reading scriptures and holy
books, for they can neither speak nor explain their true import; nor can they
be a guide to the spirit as it transcends the physical plane and traverses
higher regions, most of which are fraught with subtle dangers and difficulties
from which the Master in His luminous from can protect and lead the spirit
safely from plane to plane. Those who
take up the Way without a competent Master are likely to be deceived by the
Negative Power and misled. In Surat
Shabd Yoga, the importance of the Master cannot be over-emphasized. He is in fact the central figure, from the
beginning to the end, in fact the central figure, from the beginning to the
end, in life and after life, helping visibly and invisibly beyond the ends of
the earth, right up to the Judgment seat of God and even beyond. Naam is the heritage of the
Gurumukh All are engaged in the
repetition of names, But one gets to Naam only
through the grace of a Master-saint.
*140 GURU
AMAR DAS Spirituality can neither be
bought nor taught, but may be caught like any infection from a spiritually
infected person, a Satguru, a Sadh or a Sant.
An adept in spirituality may in compassion and grace grant a spiritual
experience of Naam, now lying buried within each one of us. We have of course to develop a receptive
attitude and then the grace flows in automatically. The riches of Naam or Word come to a Gurmukh and not to a
manmukh, who constantly grovels on the sensual plane. Search within for everything
is within, Only a devotee of the Guru
can unearth Naam, And remain in touch with it
all the time. Inexhaustible as is the
treasure of Naam, it comes to one so ordained.
*141 GURU
AMAR DAS Nothing comes up to Naam, O Nanak! a rare Gurumukh
gets this gift. *142 GURU
ARJAN By communion with the Naam
one gets to know the value of the Naam, By communion with the Naam,
one is cleansedof the sins and knows Truth; By communion with the Naam,
O Nanak, one becomes luminous, By one gets this communion
through the grace of a Guru. *143 GURU
RAM DAS Escaping bondage one attains
salvation and remains absorbed in Truth, Naam is a rare thing in this
world, only a true devotee may get to It, Nanak would make a sacrifice
of himself for one who is devotedly attached to his Guru. *144 A worldly-wise man knows not
the Naam, And without Naam, loses his
respect here and here-after. He derives not the benefit
of Naam, Engaged as he is in other
pursuits. *145 GURU
AMAR DAS The philosophy Naam cannot
be explained in words. A mere talk on
Naam is not helpful at all, for the Naam can only be contacted through an inner
experience. If we were to ask professor to get us an M.A. degree in return
for cash, he would refuse. We have to
work for it and qualify for it. The
Power of God is within each one of us, but through the grace of a Master-soul
and some spiritual discipline it can be made manifest and developed. But all creation whatever the source (Andaj,
Jairaj, Setaj, Utbhuj) and all modes of Japa worship (Baikheri, Madhma,
Pashianti and Para) are far removed from Naam and are nothing but a grand
delusion. All creation and all modes
of worship remain in delusion without Naam.
*146 GURU
AMAR DAS A Contact with this Naam
comes only through devotion ot a Master-soul and not other wise. The Kingdom of God cometh
not by observation. The Kingdom of God is within
you. *147 CHRIST Be ye the doers of the Word
and not the hearers only, was the advice of Jesus to his followers. Human
life is a great privilege, for every individual is gifted with an ethereal
element in his constitution that gives him the power of discrimination--judging
right from wrong and evaluating life's essentials and non-essentials. On this Path two things are absolutely
necessary: A true Guide or an Adept traveler of the Path, and the practice of
Naam or the spiritual Sadhna as enjoined by that Adept. But one who has not yet freed himself from
the world and worldly entanglements cannot achieve anything in this
sphere. The Divine Link within us is the very life of
our life, yet Its contact comes through the grace of the Master-soul; and
without an actual experience of the God-head within, all creatures and all
Sadhans or religious practices are of no consequence whatsoever. All creation and all
devotion is a noisy game without the saving Grace of Naam. Without a Satguru to help him
through, one can have no experience of it at all. *148 GURU
AMAR DAS It is, however, extremely
difficult to meet a genuine Master of Truth. God Himself has ordained
that no one can even conceive of Him except through a Satguru. *149 GURU AMAR DAS |