Ek Omkar Satnam #10

In a scientific laboratory a strange, unprecedented thing happened. That lab housed every kind of toxin and poison; their study was its purpose. In time the place became overrun with mice. Many methods were tried to kill them, but it proved anything but easy—because whatever poison was put out, the mice were already accustomed to it. They had become immune. Poison was everywhere in the lab. The poison would be laid down, the mice would not die; they would eat it—turn it into food.

Someone then suggested returning to the old method: use the traditional mouse traps. Traps were brought, cheese and pieces of bread were placed inside. But the mice paid no attention. They had become so habituated to poison that bread and cheese no longer appealed. Not a single mouse was caught.

Then someone proposed the only remedy left: coat the cheese and bread with a thin layer of poison—only then will these mice enter the traps. It was done. And it worked. The poison drew the mice into the traps, and they were caught.

The story sounds odd, yet it is true; it actually happened in a laboratory. The human condition is almost the same. Man has become so addicted to words that even if silence is to be communicated, it must be wrapped in words. Even if nourishment is to be given, it has to be rolled in poison; and if silence is to be conveyed, it must be wrapped in language.

To point toward the Infinite, we still have to use petty words. To lead you into emptiness, we still have to employ speech. To speak of the ocean, we must make use of a drop. But from the discussion of a drop, there is no real indication of the ocean; it cannot be. What kinship is there between a drop and the ocean? Between words and the void? Between the puny human intellect and the immeasurable expanse? Sky upon sky, abyss upon abyss—without end.

Yet their accounting has to be forced into this tiny intellect. Because man is addicted to the mind. Whatever we get addicted to, stepping beyond it becomes the hardest thing. Truth is not far; our habits are the obstacle. Truth is absolutely near—nearer than your heartbeat, nearer than your breath; the Divine is nearer to you than you are to yourself.

But there is a web of habit. Habits stand in the way; because of them it becomes difficult to see. Habit is what you call your mind. Hence all the sages have had one single endeavor: how to drop the mind! How you might become unmind! How the state of no-mind might dawn!

The moment the mind drops, the shore drops. You slip into the ocean. And there is no other means to know the ocean. You will have to become the ocean—nothing less will do. Standing on the shore you can discuss the ocean over and over, sing its praises endlessly—yet it is all futile. Your standing on the shore itself declares that you have not recognized the ocean. For one who has recognized the ocean—why would he remain standing at the shore? One who has known the Infinite—why would he linger on the bank? What power could hold him there? The magnetism of the Infinite will draw him in. There is no greater magnet. Then all other attractions fall away. The Infinite will pull you.

But we go on discussing—speaking of open skies while shut up inside our houses. Locked inside our private cages, we discourse on freedom. Imprisoned in our words, we expound on the formless.

These sutras of Nanak are priceless. Let us try to understand them. Nanak says:

“Realms below realms—hundreds of thousands;
Skies beyond skies.”

Sky upon sky—one sky becoming the infinite, for the sky has no boundary. One sky—boundless. Nanak says: skies upon skies! Infinite infinities. Not one infinity, but infinite infinities. Wherever you go, you meet the boundless. Whichever direction you move, there the limitless awaits. Whatever you touch is the infinite. On all sides—the infinite.

Amidst this Infinity you carry little cages of words trying to capture the Divine. You try to lock Him into books; to write Him into the Vedas and the Quran. It is as if someone tried to close the sky into his fist. And the great irony is: when the fist is open, there is sky; but when the fist closes, even what was there escapes. An open hand has the sky—for the open hand is within the sky. But the more tightly you clench your fist, the more the sky is shut out. In a tightly closed fist there is no sky—only the fist remains.

Use words like open hands. Do not use words like clenched fists. But words that are like open hands will not remain strictly logical. The more logical you make a word, the more you have to tighten it: define it, limit it. And whenever a definition is made, it becomes circumscribed—a wall is erected around it. The more logical the word, the more incapable it becomes of indicating the Divine. The fist has closed. The more logical the word, the more it appears to be saying—yet it truly says nothing; the throat is strangled. The more free of logic the word, the less it seems to be saying—yet it speaks.

Keep this distinction in mind. Nanak’s words are not the words of a logician; they are a poet’s words, a singer’s words, the words of a lover of beauty. Through these words Nanak is not giving definitions of the Divine. They are like open hands. With them he points. The words themselves are not saying anything; they only indicate that which cannot be said. Do not grasp the words—otherwise you will miss.

If I point to the moon with my finger and you seize my finger, how will you see the moon? The finger in itself had no meaning; it only indicated. The finger has to be dropped; the moon has to be seen. But people clutch at fingers.

That is why the worship of books begins. One worships the Vedas, another the Quran, another the Guru Granth. Worship becomes of the book. People seize the finger; and toward that which was indicated, the eyes never lift. And the tighter you hold the book, the farther you drift from truth. The fist closes. Words become all-important.

But words have no importance. Importance belongs to the wordless—because only from the wordless can it be known.

“Realms below realms—hundreds of thousands,
Skies beyond skies.
Seeking, seeking, the Vedas grew weary;
they say but one thing.”

All the Vedas say one thing: that man is incapable. All the Vedas say: by intellect it has never been found. The seekers got lost; the Sought was never attained. No fathom was reached. Those who went to measure it melted, dissolved. The searchers disappeared, but the depth they sought was not attained.

The scriptures are the story of the mind’s inadequacy. All the shastras agree on one point: whatever man does, his net is too small to capture the Divine. And the more you try to grasp, the more you find your fist remains empty.

The ways of attaining the Divine are different: there your grip won’t do—you must drop all grasping. Your thinking will not pave the way—thinking must be let go. Your arguments won’t help—they are the obstacles. Intellect will not be a ladder—it is the wall. The more you rely on your intellect, the more you will discover yourself wandering. There, all trust has to be left to Him.

Trust in intellect is also ego. To rely on intellect is to say, “I will find.” But have you ever considered: whatever you can find becomes smaller than you. That which I can capture becomes less than me. What fits into my fist is smaller than I am. How will you “get” God? If you could, He would no longer be God.

Then how to realize the Divine? The way is utterly paradoxical: the one who is willing to lose himself—he attains. There is only one path to Him: let yourself fall into His hand. Our effort is to hold Him in our fist, to bring Him home, to display Him to people: “Look—we have even obtained God.”

Such a venture is destined to fail. The Vast cannot be bundled home. The sky cannot be tied up in bags and carried away. The bags may arrive—but not the sky. The way to attain Him is to place yourself into His hand.

That is why Nanak keeps saying: “Let me offer myself a thousand times to You—still it is too little. What You will is auspicious. What You make me do is the path. What You declare is truth.”

The whole thrust is one: I step aside. I will not impose myself upon You. I have no will, no goal, no purpose. I will flow in You.

Hence faith is precious and argument is fatal. Argument says, “I am the judge.” Faith says, “You are the judge.”

“Countless netherworlds, countless skies. Many have tired searching for His end—the Vedas say only this.”

The word Veda is precious. By Veda do not understand only the four books of the Hindus. Veda means the words of those who have known. Veda comes from vid—knowing. Veda means: the utterances of one who has seen. The words of Buddhas, of Jinas, of rishis. Rigveda and Atharvaveda are also such words—yet wherever anyone has known, Veda is born. If you come to know, your utterance will be Veda. Veda has no boundary: as many knowers as have been, are, and will be—their sayings are Veda. Veda means essential knowing.

Nanak says: “All the Vedas say this one thing—that countless have grown weary seeking His end…”

Understand this well, for in a seeker’s life weariness has great value. Until you are utterly tired, you will not consent to disappear. Until you are thoroughly, totally weary, you will go on clutching yourself. A moment comes when none of your efforts seem meaningful; whatever you do, you know nothing will come of it. When the doer in you reaches its last station: “Whatever I do is futile. Whatever I achieve is futile. Whatever I have attained is futile. Whatever my desires demand is futile. Even if I get it—what then?” The day such a deep sorrow fills you—“Nothing happens through me”—that very day you will drop the ego; not before.

Before that, how could you drop it? Hope remains: “Something will be attained. I must try a little more. If it hasn’t come yet, I’m searching wrongly—let me change the method, change the master, change the scripture. From temple to mosque, from mosque to church, from church to gurdwara—keep changing.” Until you are completely exhausted, wholly tired, drowned in total disillusionment, you will keep clutching the ego.

There is an episode in Buddha’s life: for six years he searched intensely. Rarely has a man sought with such urgency. He staked everything. Whatever anyone suggested, he did it totally. No master could say to him, “You have not arrived because your effort is insufficient”—that was impossible, for his endeavor was so all-consuming there could be no complaint. Whatever was prescribed, he fulfilled it completely.

One teacher said, “For three months, live on a single grain of rice each day.” He did so. He withered to skin and bones. His back and belly became one. Even breathing became difficult from the weakness.

He did all that was told. Still, no knowing happened. Because through doing, knowledge never happens. He did everything—but the sense of the doer remained. Fasting, chanting, austerities, yoga—yet a subtle ego persisted: “I am doing.” The fist stayed clenched. The “I” remained.

And the condition is: only when the “I” dissolves. What difference does it make whether you run a shop or perform worship? In both cases the “I” remains. You run the shop; you perform the worship. Both are shops. Where ego is, there is commerce, there is world. The moment ego falls, that very moment the Divine begins. On this side you fall, on that side He happens. You go out; He enters in. Both cannot remain together. There, duality cannot be. Only one can remain—either you or He.

At last Buddha grew tired. He had done everything—attained nothing. His hands remained empty. While bathing in the Niranjana River, he was so weak he could not get out; the current began to carry him away. He did not even have strength to swim. He clung to a branch overhanging the bank. In that moment a thought arose: “I have done all—and attained nothing. In truth, in doing all this I have squandered all my strength. When I am too weak to cross this small river, how will I cross the ocean of becoming?”

All this doing has come to this. The world had already become meaningless to him—palaces a waste, wealth turned to dust. And now, in that moment, weariness went so deep that even spirituality became futile; even liberation seemed vain. In his mind arose: “Neither in the world is there anything worth attaining, nor in liberation. No one can attain anything. This whole story is futile, this whole running about meaningless.”

Somehow he made it to the bank. He sat under a tree. And in that moment he dropped all endeavor—because there was nothing left to attain. He had tried, tried, tried—and nothing came. Frustration total; not a speck of hope remained. As long as hope lives, the ego lives. That night he fell asleep beneath the tree. It was the first night in lifetimes when there was nothing to gain and nowhere to go. Nothing remained. Had death come, he would not have said, “Wait a moment,” for there was no need to wait. All hopes were shattered.

Weariness means: where all rainbows of hope have fallen, all dreams are in pieces. He slept. No dreams arose—because when there is nothing to attain, dreams cease. No thought came—because thoughts are attendants of desires; desire walks ahead, thought follows like a shadow. When no desire, then no thought.

In the morning his sleep broke. The last star of night was about to sink. Buddha’s eyes opened. He got up—and there was nothing to do. Today all had become futile. Yesterday there had been the race—to attain religion, the soul, the Divine. Today there was nothing to attain. Nothing happens through my doing; so he simply remained. The last star sank; he watched in silence. And the story says: in that very moment enlightenment happened.

What happened in that moment? That which could not be attained by so much striving—what unfolded? What unique thing occurred that lying under that tree, Buddha came upon supreme knowing?

What happened is what Nanak speaks of: weariness came; the ego utterly crumbled. “Through my doing nothing happens.” All effort dropped. And as soon as effort drops, grace descends. As soon as your hoping ends, your running stops, your fever ceases—as soon as ego falls, the fist opens.

Notice: you do not have to open the fist; you have to clench it. A closed fist takes effort. When you clench, you labor. If you do nothing, the hand opens of itself—openness is natural. The closed fist is by effort; opening is spontaneous. You need do nothing to open. Simply do not clench—and it opens. Clenching requires effort; opening requires nothing. That morning, without doing anything, the fist opened.

Kabir has said: “By non-doing, all is done.” In that moment nothing was done—and all happened. He grew tired; the ego fell. As the ego stepped out the door, the Divine entered in!

Nanak says: “The Vedas say but this one thing—that many grew weary seeking His end.”

And when they grew weary—just then realization happened. Only when you are tired to the bone will you find Him. His advent is through your exhaustion. Until you are weary, you will not attain.

That is why all yogas have one aim: how to tire you out. Through yoga you do not get the Divine; through yoga only the ego becomes exhausted. Methods do not bring God; methods only tire you. And then a state of complete fatigue, of profound rest, arrives—when the fist opens. You become so tired you cannot even clench it.

Searching and searching, countless have grown weary. And the Vedas say but this: when one is weary, then attainment happens. That is why the true masters say: the Divine comes by grace, not by effort; by compassion, not by your striving. If He could be had by your striving, He would be smaller than you. He comes by grace. He is not smaller—He is greater than you. And the moment you are empty, you are filled.

Rain falls on the mountain and on the lake alike. The lake fills; the mountain stays empty. The mountain is already full—there is no room to receive. The lake is hollow—water gathers in the basins and becomes a lake. Mountains, being full, remain empty; hollows, being empty, are filled.

The Divine showers on all equally. Existence is the same for all—without even a grain of difference. There is no calculation of worthy and unworthy, sinner and saint. He rains on all as the sky covers all. But those full of themselves remain deprived; there is no space within them. Those empty of themselves are filled—there is room within. When khudi (selfhood) dissolves, Khuda (God) happens. And khudi will not dissolve so long as the hope remains: “I will get it.”

“The scriptures—the Gospel, the Quran, the Torah—say there are eighteen thousand worlds. But in essence, there is only one substance.”

Many expansions—one hidden essence. If you attend only to the manifold, you will go astray in the world. Attend to the One, and you will arrive at the Divine.

Think of a garland with many beads; within each bead runs one thread, the same thread. If you clutch the beads, you wander in samsara. If you grasp the thread, you attain God.

On the surface of the ocean, countless waves. If you forget the ocean and keep your attention on the waves, you will go on wandering—waves forming and dissolving without end. One wave will lead to another and another. You will become like a little paper boat tossed from wave to wave—sinking here, sinking there; suffering here, suffering there. You will not reach the shore, for there is no shore among the waves. In waves there is only change; the shore must be the changeless. Rest cannot be in the waves; rest is where all waves fall silent, where you find that which never alters.

Have you noticed? The more change there is in your life, the more restlessness. That is why modern life is so agitated—change has become incessant. Scientists estimate: in the five thousand years before Christ, as much change occurred as later occurred in the thousand years after; then as much again in two hundred years; now, as much as those five thousand years is happening in five years. Before this century ends, that quantum will occur in five months. Change so rapid you cannot settle on one wave before another arrives.

Ask the elderly in a village—they will tell you their village is nearly what it was. When they were born, it was like this; now too. But your cities—the blueprints of the future—nothing is the same the next day. Everything shifting. In the West change has become ferocious.

In America, no one lives more than three years in one town on average. That is the average; it includes those who stay longer. Some move every few months. The town changes, the air changes, the season changes, the clothes change, the car changes—waves rising and rising. And your mind thinks the more change, the more happiness.

In fact, the more change, the more suffering. Each time it is like uprooting a plant from its soil to replant it elsewhere—again uprooted, again replanted. Your roots cannot take hold in one wave before another arrives.

The more change, the more hellish life becomes. Thus the West has become a condensed hell. In ancient days the East was tranquil—change was minimal. Things were steady. In such stillness it was easier to slip into the ocean; roots were firm, courage to go deep was possible.

Remember: if you flow with the wave, you are worldly. If within the wave you begin to seek the ocean, you have become a sannyasin. Seeking the eternal within the changing is renunciation. The art of catching the Unchanging in the midst of change—that is religion, the essence of all Vedas, Qurans, Gospels.

Nanak says: “The scriptures say there are eighteen thousand realms. But essentially, there is one Reality.”

What you choose to hold determines your destiny. Both are open. You may hold the changeful—what comes and goes. Or you may hold That which never comes and never goes; that which simply is; upon whose chest all changes rise and fall, while It remains unchanged.

He who has caught the One—upon his life showers bliss. He who clutches the many—he goes from one sorrow to another. He never finds happiness. He only gets a taste of its mirage. When he shifts from one sorrow to another, the tiny interval of change seems to promise joy.

How many times you changed houses! Cars! When you swap an old car for a new, in that interval of change a hint of joy seems to appear. But you felt the same last time. And you will feel the same next time. Change a wife, change a husband—between the two there is a ray of hope. Like bearers carrying a corpse to the cremation ground—on the way they shift the load from one shoulder to the other. For a moment it feels like relief—because the weight is the same. How can there be relief? The new shoulder soon tires; again they shift.

You are changing shoulders. In between there is a faint sense of relief—“happiness.” Happiness you have never known. Look back: you will not find a single moment you truly knew happiness such that you could thank the Divine. It is sorrow upon sorrow. People only change sorrows. They drop the old pain, take up a new one. Soon the new becomes old; they drop it and pick up another—hope lingering that someday happiness will come.

This is not the way to joy—because you are swapping waves for waves. The way to joy is to enter the ocean from the wave. Waves are many; the ocean is one. There may be eighteen thousand worlds, but the substance is one. In all, one is hidden. The entire art of living condenses into this: seek the One. Find the thread.

“If there were an account of Him, we could write it; but all accounts are perishable. Says Nanak: call Him the Great—He alone knows Himself.”

Regarding Him nothing can be written, for what is written perishes—and He never perishes. How can the mortal report the deathless? All accounts are lost. How many scriptures are gone! Those that exist today will also vanish. How many words have arisen and dissolved—but Truth remains.

Their qualities differ. That which is written will be erased. That which is unwritten… If you could learn to read a blank page, you would understand the Divine.

It happened in Maharashtra. Three saints—Eknath, Nivrittinath, and a woman fakir, Muktabai. Eknath sent a letter to Nivrittinath—a blank sheet. Nothing written. Sealed and sent. Nivrittinath received it and read it with great relish. Nothing was on it—yet he read it deeply. Then he gave it to Muktabai: “You read it too.” She also read it with care. Both became joyous. They said to the messenger, “Take our reply.” They handed back the same blank page.

The messenger was in a fix. When he brought it, it was sealed—he hadn’t known it was blank. Now he had seen there was nothing written. He said, “Master, before I go, satisfy a small curiosity. Nothing is written—how did you read it? Not only did you read, Muktabai read too. And you were both pleased. You read with such attention—surely something was read. What was it? And again you send back the same blank page!”

Nivrittinath said, “Eknath has sent the message: if you want to read ‘That,’ you must read on a blank page. Whatever you read on a written page, that is not ‘That.’ We agree; we understand. This is our reply: we have understood. We consent.”

Books are written; the Divine is unwritten. How will books speak Him? To learn to read the unwritten—read the Vedas, the Guru Granth, the Quran; but drop the written part. Read the unwritten. Leave the letters; absorb the blanks. Between the lines, between the words—wherever there is empty space—read that. Savor that.

If you read the written, you will become a scholar. If you read the unwritten, you will become a knower. If you memorize the letters, you will collect a heap of information. If you remember the unwritten, you will become simple like a child. And the doorway is through the unwritten.

Hence Nanak says: Is there any account of Him that can be written? Has anyone ever known Him in such a way that it could be turned into information?

No information can inform about Him. Those who have known are silent. If they speak, they speak only to point toward silence. If they write, they write so that you may begin to read the unwritten.

There is no account of Him that can be written. And what is written will perish. However you preserve the books, they will be lost. They are paper books; ink letters. What is more perishable than that? A paper boat.

Those who try to reach the Divine riding on scriptures are riding paper boats. The boats will sink—and the passengers with them. Do not set out in a paper boat. For children’s play, paper boats are fine; not for a journey. And this journey is great—no journey greater, for no ocean is greater.

No, scriptures will not do. Understand their indication. And their indication is one: become empty. But man’s foolishness has no end. Those who tell us to become empty—we seize them and fill ourselves with them. We hoard them in our heads. Then we are caught again in the web of the changing. And our “intelligence”—what we call intelligence—shows not a trace of wisdom.

I have heard: Alexander sought the water that gives immortality. A famous tale. It is said his conquests were for the sake of this nectar. At last he found the cave where the spring of ambrosia flows. He rejoiced—the moment of fulfillment. The stream gurgled before him. He bent to cup it in his palms—to drink and become immortal—when a crow perched in the cave shrieked, “Stop! Don’t! Do not make this mistake!” Alexander looked. The crow was in a pitiful state—feathers gone, talons fallen, eyes blind—so dilapidated he could hardly be recognized as a crow, a mere skeleton. Alexander asked, “Why stop me? And who are you to stop me?”

The crow said, “Hear my story. I too sought the nectar. I found this cave and drank. Now I cannot die. And now I only wish to die. Look at me! Blind eyes, a decrepit body, feathers gone, cannot fly; feet rotted away—yet I cannot die. Look at me once—then if you wish, drink. But I am crying, screaming: let someone kill me. No one can. I cannot live, for all the instruments of living have decayed. Nor can I die—for this nectar is a curse. I pray only this to God: kill me, kill me. Only this longing remains—to die somehow. Think once. Then as you will!”

It is said Alexander pondered. Then quietly he left the cave without drinking.

Whatever you desire—if it is fulfilled, you will be in trouble; if it is not fulfilled, you will be in trouble. You do not want to die. If you could find the cave and drink, you would be in trouble—for then you would find: now what to do with living? When life was in your hands, when you could live, you longed for immortality—because with death, how to live? You cannot live with death, nor with immortality. Not in poverty, not in riches. Not in hell, not in heaven. And still you think yourselves wise!

There was a Sufi fakir, Bayazid. He used to pray, “Do not heed my prayers. Do not fulfill them. I don’t have the wisdom to ask for what is truly good!”

Man is utterly witless. Whatever he asks, there he gets entangled. If it is fulfilled—trouble. If not—trouble. Look back at your life; take account. Of what you asked that was fulfilled—did it give you happiness? Of what you asked that was not fulfilled—did that give you happiness? In both cases you suffer. You got entangled in what you asked; entangled in what you received; entangled in what you did not receive.

What is wisdom? Its mark is to ask for that which, once asked, leaves no room for sorrow. Therefore, except for the religious person, no one is wise—because only the one who asks for the Divine never repents. Whatever else you ask, you will repent. Remember it well: whatever you ask, you will repent. Only the one who asks for God never repents. Nothing less will do. That alone is life’s destination.

But can you find that God in the scriptures?

Nanak says: not there. There you will find words and doctrines—not truth. Where is truth? Nanak says:

“Call Him the Great—He alone knows Himself.”