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Devotion
to Shabd: What it is To
attend and listen with a single mind to the Dhun Atmak Shabd within is devotion
of the right type. Shabd is highly
subtle, and until we rise to the same level of subtlety we cannot possibly
grasp or take hold of it. Shabd or the
Power of God is all-pervading in all-consciousness, and if our spirit, which is
of the same essence as God, gets contact with Shabd, it is a contact with God;
for God is not different from His Power (Shabd). A
contact with Shabd is contact with God, It
is the crowning fruition of all endeavors.
*93 GURU AMAR DAS In order to establish a
contact with Shabd, it is necessary that the soul must first free itself from
the prision house of finite existence.
It is only a perfect Master who can enable it to break through the
bondage of mind and matter, raise it above body-consciousness and then link it
with the Over-soul--the life of life--the Naam. Shabd is the heritage of a
rare devotee of the Master Everyone wishes to see God
face to face but only a rare soul gets the holy communion through the Shabd. How many are pining to meet
Thee? A rare soul realizes Thee
with the Word of the Master. *94 GURU NANAK This body is the holy temple
of God, with God's Power working in and out of it. All Persons, rich and poor, lettered and unlettered, yong and
aged man and woman, anywhre and everywhere, irrespective or color, cdaste and
creed, are qualified to have a free access to that Power within through the
grace of some competent Master and thus practice Shabd quite easily and
naturally and reap the fruit thereof. Holy temple of the body is
His Emporium with the Shabd beautifully set within. A devotee of the Master may
find the precious Naam therein. *95 Without contact with the
Shabd, the world remains in delusion and the human life goes in vain. O Nanak, Shabd is the Water
or Life and a rare devotee of the Master gets to it. *96 GURU AMAR DAS A mind-ridden person,
because of the oscillation of the mind, does not recognize the Shabd and
remains a total stranger to this elixir. The restless mind knows not
the Way, The filthy mind cannot
recognize the Word. *97 GURU NANAK A slave of the senses knows
not the Word and loses his self-respect, And he finds no delight in
the Shabd as he remains engaged in the sensual pursuits. *98 GURU AMAR DAS Shabd: What it does Shabd is
All-consciouness. It is just a wave in
the sea of consciousness. Man is a drop
of the Ocean of God, and both are of the same spirit. While one is the Ocean, the other is the wave and the third is a
drop of All-conscious God. The wave of
conscious Shabd cannot but, like a powerful magent, attract and draw to Itself
the conscious powerful magnet, attract and draw to Itself the conscious drop of
the spirit. The spirit finds no rest
until, riding upon the Sound Current, it reaches the heavenly home of the
Father and attains salvation. The sound
is surging in Its fullness and the spirit needs but to contact it to rise above
all limitations into the limitless eternity. Surat and Shabd are
naturally related to each other. Shabd
is characterized by Light and Sound principles, wherewith the mind gets stilled
and the spirit, freed from the clutches of the mind, is irresistibly drawn by
the Shabd and is taken to her native home from where the Sound Current is
emanating. On the other hand, those who
take up practices involving Pranas cannot go beyond the frontiers of Prana
which extend to the mental or astral heaven (Chidakash). But a Shabd-Yogin can go freely, openly and
honorably to wherever he likes, because Shabd pervades everywhere without any
limitations, and reach the true home of his Father. My God is everywhere and at
all times, And becomes manifest by
practice of Shabd. *99 GURU AMAR DAS Shabd is the means of
finding God. A contact with the Shabd
means contact with God. A communion with the Word is
union with God, And all endeavors then get
crowned with success. *100 GURU AMAR DAS Shabd is the only way that
leads to the True King. In the living soul is the
Life of life (Shabd) Which becomes an usher to
the great King. *101 GURU RAM DAS Shabd is the Way that leads
to Reality. It is a barque that can
take the Jiva safely across the sea of matter to the mansion of the Lord. The Absolute God and the
spirit alone with Shabd, the connecting link between the two, constitute the
holy trinity, for the same Power of God is working simultaneously in all the
three. The spirit in man has no separate
existence independent of God. O Kabir! The spirit is of
the essence of God. *102 KABIR Though all spirits are of
One Reality, yet each one of the spirits feels that it has a separate
existence. Sach Khand or the Kingdom of
God is within us but none can enter therein without proper guidance. For admittance thereto, we must invert and
become a little child in innocence and purity, for then we can catch the saving
lifeline of Shabd which leads Godward.
By communion with Shabd, we are freed from pleasure and pain, mind and
matter, and rise above the pairs of opposites, and attain liberation from the
cycle of births and deaths. Shabd is the live and
conscious Life-current of God which has both created the world and sustains
it. It is the involuted seed that has
evolved into a mighty tree laden with many colored flowers and fruits. Whatever now exists, exists in Eternity and
whatever goes out of existence also goes into Eternity. Everything is in the great Deep, rising
momentarily to the surface in the form of tides, wave, ripples, bubbles and the
like, appearing and disappearing before our eyes--the Unmanifested manifesting
Himself into so many forms and patterns. Shabd is the root-cause of
the creation and the creation is the resultant effect thereof. All that sprouts from and comes out of the
roots is already in roots in a condensed form and in fullness of time grows and
fructifies. When a ray of the sun falls
on a polished reflector, it begins to reflect the sun itself. In the same way, when the mind is purified
and there is left nor a trace of I-ness in it, it begins to reflect God's Light
from within. Just as the ray of the sun
is nor dirrerent from the sun itself, so also a spirit, which is nothing but a
ray of God, is not different from God and begins to manifest the hidden Power
of God, with proper training and guidance in the Science of Shabd or Word. Shabd (Dhun-Atmak) is the
true primordial Word as taught by St. John is his Gospel. It is responsible for creating the various
grand divisions, divisions and sub-divisions of the universe right from the
highest spiritual region down to the physical world in which we live. Emanating from God, the spirit current
worked out the miracle of creation and is sustaining it and controlling it in
all details. The practice of the Sound Current,
as taught by the Masters in all ages and in all countries, is the highest
religion and confers the highest boon--to wit, liberation from the bondage of
mind and matter while still living. But
contact with Shabd can be established only through the grace of a Master of the
Sound Current and not otherwise. Shamas Tabrez, a Muslim
divine speaks of Shabd as follows: There comes a Sound (Nida),
from neither within nor without, From neither right nor left,
from neither behind nor in front, From neither below nora
above, from neither East nor West, Nor is It of the element:
water, air fire, earth, and the like; From where then? It is from
that place thou art in search of; From the place where the
prophet Moses saw the divine Light, From the place where the
fruits get their ripening influence, From the place where the
stones get transmute to gems, From the place to which even
aninfidel turns distress, From the place to which all
men turn when they find this world vale of tears. It is not given to us to
describe such a blessed place; It is a place where even the
heretics would leave off their heresies. Truly, the Shabd is coming
from the direction in which the soul has to go. Without Shabd, the soul remains in darkness and fells helpless. Without theaid of Shabd, the
soul wanders blinded in ignorance and knows not the Way out. KABIR All sages and seers have
counted upon Shabd as theonly means of salvation. But one cannot take hold of the lifelone of the Sound Current
without initiation into the esoteric teachings of the Masters from a competent
living Master-soul and practicing the process of soul-withdrawal at the still
point the body between and behind the two eyebrows. This is moving from the circumdrence of life to the center of
life and from here the soul, following the lead of the Sound Principle,
proceeds to her native home, the Mansion of God, the source and fountainhead of
the divine Melody Itself. Shabd thus leads us to an
altogether new life--life of the spirit as distinguished from at life of the
flesh. Christ too taught of this new
life which our Christian brethren have forgooten with the lapse of time. St.
John, in his Gospel, tells us, Verily, verily, I say unto
thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Verily,verily, I say
untothee, except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into
the kingdom of God. That which is born
of the flesh, is flesh; and that which is born of the spirit, is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto
thee, ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it
listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof but canst not tell whence it cometh,
and wither it goeth; so is everyone that is born of the spirit. CHRIST In the Book of Ezekiel we
have: A new heart also will I give
you, and a new spirit will I put within you and I will take away the stony
heart out of your flesh and I will give you an heart of flesh. *104 This new life of the spirit
begins from the day of initiation into the mysteries of he spirit, call it what
you like: "Deeksha" as the Hindus do, "Beat" as the Muslims
say, "Baptism" as it is known among the Christians, or
"Pahul" as among the Sikhs.
The Vedic seers gave it the name of "Duey Janama" which
literally means second birth. The life
of the spirit begins not with the theoretical exposition of the spiritual
science but by a practical demonstration on the spiritual place of the
spirit-current made manifest. Here the
invisible and inaudible life-stream is made both atheist into a theist in the
true sense of the tem. It is imparting
the life-impulse and making It throb in every pore of the body. This coming back of the soul to the
realization of her true nature and rising into Universal or Cosmic awareness
beyond the walls of finitude is true resurrection or coming to a new birth and
a new life. To die in the body while
living, is to live in the spirit. St. Paul describes it thus: I am crucified with Christ:
nevertheless I live; ye not I, but Christ liveth in me. *105 The life of the flesh and
the life of the spirit are two distinct and separate things, exclusive of each
other. This is why it is said, He that findeth his life
shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake, shall find it. *106 CHRIST Guru Nanak speaks of it: The birth in the Master
releases one from the cycle of transmigration.
*107 Among
the Muslims it is called "Fana-fil-Sheikh" or Death in the Master
which is just the same thing as Birth in the Master for this deathis but the
beginning of a new life. Shab
thus takes us out of the ignorance which characterizes both mind and matter,
purifies us through and through and gives us a new lease on life--the life or
the spirit, which is unchanging and eternal--as one breaks away once and for
all from the body and bodily attachments, and sees the new world without the
help of the outer eyes. Communion
with the All-pervading Word of the Master is the highest virtue, And
takes one to his natuive landto drink the elixir of life and to see the new
world without the help of the outer eyes.
*108 GURU RAM DAS The early morning hours are
best suited for practice of the Sound Principle, for the mind is yet fresh out
of sleep and has not yet wandered into the daily routine of the physical life. In the early morning hours,
commune with the Word leaving aside all attachments, Nanak would like to be the
slave of His slave who engaged in the Word and won what is lost to the
world. *109 At the ambrosial hour of the
early dawn, Be ye in communion with the
divine Word, And meditate on His
glory. *110 GURU NANAK |