GIST OF BABA JI (ENGLISH) SATSANG ON RELIGION—24.11.2018, BHATTI NEW DELHI

GIST OF BABA JI (ENGLISH) SATSANG ON RELIGION—24.11.2018, BHATTI NEW DELHI

(AS UNDERSTOOD)

The subject of Satsang is Religion. The purpose of religion is to seek Oneness with God. The basis of all religions is spirituality.  Spirituality is the inherent seeking in each individual due to pull of the soul for the Lord. This pull is called Love.

Man needs a solitary place where he could remember Him in silence within his heart. In ancient times a person would sit under a tree in seclusion to fulfil that yearning for the Lord. After a passage of time, a group of people made a small commune or a holy place for fulfilling similar spiritual need. This collectiveness produced intellectual discussions for understanding about the Lord as to where His abode is or what His powers are and what is the purpose of this creation.

This desire of acquiring knowledge with reasoning led to the confusion of knowing “many” instead of the One and the only One. The search for the One became pursuit of knowing the Creation instead of the Creator. The lure for the world became prominent instead of Love for the Lord. That is how religions came into existence.

INTELLECT AND KNOWLEDGE

In Christian mythology, you may recall the story of Adam and Eve where a serpent or the Satan suggested them to eat the forbidden fruit of knowledge. Though eating that fruit gave them knowledge of the process of creation, it also provided them with ability to invoke negative and destructive concepts riddled with shame and evil—that led to beginning of the karmic cycle.

Mankind got bogged down in good and bad; action and reaction. There were more of intellectual deliberations on rules of living and worshipping the Lord designed by men or priestly class and philosophers.  The more the knowledge, then more is the confusion. The purpose of the religion which was for the Oneness of the God by loving Him changed to duality. (To polytheism from the   concept of monotheism.)

From time to time mystics arrived and again stressed the need of seeking the One God within the temple of human body. They emphasised Bhakti with Love. Many seekers followed them and benefitted from their teachings. The purpose of saints, gurus and mystics is conveying method of seeking the God and not to get their bodies worshipped. Bodies are bound to perish but start has to be made with physical bodies. The real form of the guru is shabd and the real form of the seeker is also the shabd, except that the Guru is in state of awareness of shabd, while the seeker has yet to realise that. (शब्द गुरु सुरत धुन चेला)

 After mystics left their mortal frames, we again started worshipping them outside or their bodies as an idol or a book written by them or for them or  praying at  holy places, instead of seeking the Lord within the human body—which is the temple of living God. This again led to the multiplicity of religions.

DESIRELESS-NESS

There is an allegorical reference in the Book of Mirdad where a mystic in his pursuit of God abandons all he has by a paradigm of a man climbing the hill. As he moves up the hill he starts shedding all personal items (meaning desires) that he earlier thought were necessary for the journey. At the peak of the hill, he is left with nothing. The state of thoughtless of mind- rid of desires- means that it has become inert or dormant. It is at this time when the self or Ultimate Reality is realised. But that is easily said than done.

LOVE DEFIES DUALITY

God is love and Love is God. God or Love cannot be described in words and alphabets. जिन प्रेम किया तिन ही प्रभ पाया// However we have branded Him alphabetically as Parmatma, Khuda, Waheguru, God and with many other names. Likewise the religions associated with these names have created followers that have also been branded alphabetically as Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians etc. Lord is nameless, formless, has no religion and cannot be captured in alphabets and intellectual reasoning. But the world has seen more conflicts in the name of Religion than on any other subject. महज़ब नहीं सिखाता आपस में बेर रखना  

For example--Tulsi sahib says रास्ता शहरग में है दिलवर को पाने के लिए// he has called the jugular vein as Shahrag, while Hindus call it Sushmna, Gurbani calls it Sukhmani, Christians call it Royal High way or Camino-Real.  The interplay of the words is thus irrelevant   

Love unites and therefore when you Love God, you love all. Without love there is duality ---separation from God. When God is present in the every speck of the creation, how can there be any endorsement of duality. Duality is the division of Oneness into me and you. In love there is no scope of me, him, us, them and you. They cease to exist. With love comes faith.  

FAITH

In this age of internet we have easy access to a lot of information but that information is not knowledge. The knowledge can be acquired when we diligently contemplate or work upon that information and acquire an experience ourselves. That experience will give us faith and that faith cannot be shattered by counter arguments or reasoning because we have practiced it ourselves. (For example--one can get information of driving the car from the net. Unless that information is applied for driving the car—experience cannot be gained. Only after that experience and expertise one can have faith.)

WILL AND DESTINY

Love and faith provide us with the power of living in His will. What is His will? His will is Nam, out of which all things are made that are made. (एको नाम हुकम है नानक सतगुरु दिया भुजाये जिओ)  Let us shun branding into good or bad; right or wrong; truth or false; happiness and unhappiness. All things are destined by His Hukam and Raza or Bhana; by accepting all He has blessed us or doing for us with gratitude, which is the essence of true religion and spirituality.

In our daily affairs we think that by ritualism and prayers we can fulfil our wishes or change the destiny. Do you think God is not aware of our needs? If he is not aware then he is also not capable of giving. Has He erred in carving our destiny?

Religion of Love is to accept the destiny designed by Him. What about our efforts and result thereof? Our efforts will surely be rewarded but not the way we want or in the time frame we anticipate. Meditation is a means of creating that Love within and to live through the struggle of life as destined without seeking rewards for our actions.

KARMAS

Saints cannot take our Karmas. All karmas of the life will have to be settled by us. However by meditation and meditative way of life we get inner strength to go through multitude of karmic phases.

GRACE

Saints tell us the method of doing Bhajan- Simran to clean the vessel of mind and body. Let us make ourselves clean to receive His Grace. The timing of that Grace is His Will; He will pour His Grace in a clean vessel only. Any understanding that Saints will do Bhajan-simran for us is flawed.