Ek Omkar Satnam #17

Before we enter Nanak’s sutra, a few things must be understood.

First: whoever takes life itself to be the goal goes astray. Life is merely an opportunity, not the goal. It is a road, not the destination. Through it you are to arrive somewhere. Do not assume that just because you are alive, you have arrived. Life is not an attainment, it is only a process. If you pass through it rightly, you will arrive. If not, you will wander.

The one who takes life itself to be everything is an atheist; the one for whom there is a beyond, a further shore to reach, is a theist. For the theist, life is a halt along the way. Nanak calls it a dharmashala—a wayside inn. You are to stay there for a little while, but do not make it your home forever. Whoever does, will be deprived of the real home. You set out to gain something, and mistook the road for the home; then how will you reach the destination? Who will still move on?

This world is not a home. Those who make it their home—these are what we call householders. A householder is not simply one who lives in a house; a householder is one who has made the world his home.

A sannyasin is one who knows the world is a dharmashala, not a home. He lives here too—where else will he go? He too must live in a house; only his way of seeing changes. You think your house is the destination; you have arrived. The sannyasin knows it is a dharmashala, a caravanserai; there is somewhere else to go. He does not forget the goal. He may stop at a thousand inns, yet he carries the remembrance of his destination.

That remembrance is surati. Whoever holds that thread and doesn’t lose it will stop at many inns and yet go on crossing beyond. No inn will be able to hold him. He will live in the world, yet remain outside it. Where your destination is—there you truly are. Where you are headed—there you truly are. You are not where you physically stand; you are where your attention dwells. This is the first thing to understand.

Most people—almost all, except one in millions—take what they have got to be the end. But what you have got is not even the beginning. It is not even the doorway to the mansion—nor yet the stairs. You are still on the road; the steps are yet to come. When the steps appear in one’s life, religion has arrived. The one on the road is worldly; the one in whom the steps have appeared is a seeker; and the one who is established in the mansion is a siddha. In your life, even the steps have not yet appeared; you have not yet begun to practice.

The deep reason for this confusion is that you have become satisfied with what you have gotten. Remember: in one sense the religious person is utterly content; in another sense, it is hard to find anyone more discontented than he. He is content in that he has no complaint against the Divine; and he is discontent in that he has a great complaint against himself.

The irreligious person complains to God—You didn’t give this, you didn’t give that—but has no complaint against himself. With himself, the irreligious man is complacent. That complacency becomes his tomb. If you are content with yourself, how will you grow? How will you develop? How will you open your wings to touch the sky? You will be imprisoned in your nest; you will die in your cage.

Contentment toward the Divine is needed; discontent with oneself is needed. Our condition is the reverse. With ourselves we are satisfied; with God, dissatisfied. We are dissatisfied with the whole world; nothing seems right—except ourselves. And precisely that is not right; everything else is. Outside you, there is no mistake. The whole of existence is flowing in peace and bliss. Nowhere is there any obstacle—except somewhere within you.

So the religious person carries a deep discontent with himself: As I am, I am not worthy of the Divine. As I am, I cannot worship, I cannot truly pray. As I am, how can I be accepted? As I am, I am not yet fit for Him. I must become worthy—create a vessel fit for His acceptance. I must make myself such that He consents to be my guest. I must build in my heart a throne befitting Him.

Thus the religious person is dissatisfied with himself. Therefore the day comes when, polishing and refining himself, he himself becomes a golden throne—worthy of the Divine to be seated upon. At his door, the Divine will knock—if not today, then tomorrow. There will not be a moment’s delay. The instant you are ready, in that very instant there will be a knock at your door. Delay lasts only as long as you are not ready. Crying and shouting will not help. Preparation is needed.

And preparation means transformation. You will have to change yourself in a thousand ways. If you look at yourself carefully, you will discover: leave aside the Divine—for even you, as you are, would you agree to live with the person you are? If you had to love someone exactly like yourself, you would refuse.

That’s why no one truly loves themselves. You are not even worthy of your own love. That is why people are troubled when alone. No one is willing to keep company with himself. If you have to sit alone for a couple of hours, you become restless: You want a friend, a club, cinema, market, radio, television, newspaper—something! How to sit with oneself? Great boredom arises. You are bored of yourself. You cannot stay a moment in your own good company—yet you long for the Divine? If you yourself are unwilling to live with you, be sure: who else will be willing?

And the Divine is far beyond that. The Divine means the deepest peak of existence descending into your heart. But then you must create depth within. That much depth is needed. You are so shallow that the slightest thing causes a storm within you. A slight tremor and you shake; a little insult and you flare into fire; a touch of sorrow and you think hell has broken loose. So perturbed by trifles—you have no depth. If a small stone thrown into you causes a tempest, clearly you are no deep ocean.

In the ocean, even if the Himalayas fall in, the waves take no note; nothing changes. So many rivers empty into the sea, yet it does not rise an inch; it remains as it is.

You aspire to the Divine. Have you thought what would happen if He actually came? You would be in great difficulty. Where would you seat Him? How would you welcome Him? You would flee your house!

You have no throne—for if a throne were to be made of gold, you might manage it. But the throne is to be made of your heart. The throne is to be made of love. Gold can be bought in the marketplace; where will you find love? If it were a matter of building a palace, there are many palaces; you could build or buy one. Then God would descend into the houses of emperors. But the palace is to be built within—the palace of emptiness, the palace of meditation. That is difficult. It is a long journey.

If where you are, you take it to be home—you are a householder. If you understand it is a dharmashala, a brief halt for rest, and then onward… then you are a sannyasin.

There is an old Sufi tale. Someone asked a Sufi, What is the secret of finding God? He said, I will tell you a story.

There was a woodcutter. Every day he would cut wood in the forest and bring it to the town. He did this all his life, earning not even enough for two meals. Sometimes he ate; sometimes he went to bed hungry.

A fakir lived in the forest and watched him daily. He felt compassion. You are foolish, he said. Why don’t you go a little further into the forest? The woodcutter asked, What will that do? The fakir said, Go a little further. You cut wood here and return—needlessly poor. Those who went a little further became prosperous, for there is a copper mine beyond.

The man went a little further and found copper. He began selling it. After some days the fakir met him again. Foolish still? he said. Now that you’ve left wood for copper, why not go further still? There is a silver mine.

He went further and found silver, and became wealthy.

The fakir passed by again: Have you any sense? You haven’t understood the mantra. Go further! There is a gold mine.

The man went further but got entangled in gold. He was a woodcutter like us! Wherever we reach, we get stuck. Once seated, we refuse to rise. The fakir said, How many times must I tell you—further! He went further, got tangled in gold—where many are tangled.

One day the fakir passed by: You will never understand. You are dull-witted. Outwardly you are rich, but inwardly still a beggar. I pity you. I have told you many times—go further! Beyond lies a diamond mine. He went further.

Years later the fakir came by again. Now the man was entangled in diamonds—mansions, heaps of wealth. The fakir said, You remain an object of pity. Within you are still poor—just as when you were a woodcutter. Gold, wealth, diamonds—all are outside. Why won’t you go further?

The man said, Why are you after me? Why won’t you let me live in peace? Why this “further, further”? What more can there be? I have diamonds now!

The fakir said, Beyond lies my ashram. And I can give you the real diamonds—the diamonds of meditation. Until now you’ve sought only outer mines. Beyond, the inner mine begins.

He had listened so far, but now he said, This is too much. Beyond my understanding. Let me stay here.

The fakir said, As you wish. But that further mine will not always be available. I am here today; tomorrow I will be gone. The mines you have found so far will always remain—whether we are here or not; they existed before us; they will exist after us.

The mine of meditation appears only sometimes—once in many centuries it is revealed. Sometimes a man discovers that mine and becomes a doorway. Nanak calls such a one the Guru; and the doorway he becomes is the Gurudwara—the Guru’s gate. When the mine of meditation appears in a man’s life, he becomes a door. But he will not remain forever. And you are so blind that you will pass by even that door and not see it—for your eyes are on visible wealth; you have no sense at all for the invisible treasure.

Keep this mantra of “further” alive until the Divine is attained—do not forget it until then. Whoever settles for less goes astray; he becomes a householder of the world. Hence the sannyasin’s thirst has no end. He will quench his thirst only by drinking the Divine. Lesser waters will not do.

That is why Nanak calls this world a dharmashala. Understand his sutra:

Night, seasons, lunar days and weekdays; air, water, fire and the nether regions—
Within all this He established the earth as a dharmashala.

He created night, seasons, dates, days, air, water, fire and the underworlds; and amidst all that He set the earth as a wayside inn. In its midst He ordained beings of countless hues—names innumerable and infinite. There, according to their deeds, they are considered.

So first: this world is a dharmashala, a caravanserai. The deeper you can let this sink into your being, the more useful it becomes. For the deeper this insight settles in you—that to remain where you are is death—the more you will move: further, and further, and further—until you reach the very doorway of the Divine. Do not halt before that. If you tire, rest—but do not make the rest-house your home.

There will be fatigue; the journey is long, the goal far. You will go astray a thousand times; there is no paved road, no royal highway, no ready-made route. Man makes his own path by walking. That is why the path to the Divine seems distant. Birds fly in the sky and leave no footprints; likewise the perfected ones walk in the sky of God and leave no tracks. The sky is empty again.

When you walk, you cannot walk in another’s footprints. Borrowed truth is impossible. No one can give you truth. Hints can be given. Love can be given. The Master’s grace can descend. But the truth you must discover yourself. His grace can give strength to your legs, not the path itself. His compassion can assure you and give you courage—do not stagger, do not fear—but you must walk. And the path is such that it comes into being only as you walk. There is no ready-made way to the Divine. Every person must find his own path. This is the difficulty—and this is the glory. If a fixed, stale road existed, trodden by millions, and you followed, there would be no joy left in finding God.

Whenever the Divine meets someone, it is fresh and new, original—as if meeting you for the first time ever. Not stale, as though others had met Him before you and left their footprints at His door, their signatures upon His threshold.

No. You come utterly new, as if for the first time. As if He were a virgin waiting for you. God is eternally virgin. If He had been wed to multitudes before you, there would be nothing left to know. His virginity is eternal. Whoever arrives finds Him virgin—fresh and new—as fresh as morning dew, as fresh as the first ray of dawn. There are no ready-made roads.

Nor is there any map given to you to follow—because life is continual change; everything is in flux. The way I reached may not work for you. It worked for me; it may not work for you.

Nanak says the Divine has crafted countless beings, innumerable souls in different colors and forms. Each person is unique. If each is unique, then what worked for me may not work for you. My understanding can be of use to you in finding your way—but the path you find will be yours alone. It will carry your own imprint—like your thumbprint which is yours and yours only. Billions have been on the earth, are here now, and will come—but your thumbprint will never be repeated. If even your thumbprint is made so original by existence, imagine how original your soul must be! Think of it.

New discoveries in medicine have entered deep waters. One of their findings: the anatomical pictures in textbooks—heart, kidney, lungs—are averages. Every person’s organ differs in color and shape; no two lungs, no two hearts are exactly the same. Not just the thumb—every particle of the body is uniquely yours. And God never creates you twice. He will never make another like you. You are unique—therefore your way of reaching Him will be unique. This is both the compulsion and the splendor: you will reach Him by a path utterly new—never stale for you.

This insight—if understood—points to the very meaning of soul. Machines we can manufacture by the thousands, identical. Ten thousand cars from the same factory—one part fits another. Hard to tell one car from the next. But no two souls are the same. Each soul is unique.

In the language of poets, saints and devotees: the soul cannot be cast in molds. God crafts each soul with His own hands. That is the meaning of “Creator.” Like a painter creating a painting—ask him to paint it again and he cannot make the exact image. Even the same painter cannot. Differences will appear—time has moved; the painter has changed; his inner climate is different. The state of being in which the first painting was made is no longer there.

Picasso was once painting. A friend came by, saw him at work; Picasso was so absorbed the friend slipped away quietly. Later, when the painting was on sale, the friend bought it—fake Picassos were in the market, but this one he had seen Picasso paint. He brought it to Picasso: This is authentic, isn’t it? Picasso said: I painted it, yes—but it’s not authentic. The friend was stunned. Authentic means painted by the painter himself, not a copy. Picasso said: It is authentic in the sense that I made it; and not authentic in that I was only making a replica of my earlier paintings. While painting, I was not a creator; I was copying—my own earlier work—but the creator in me was absent. The friend asked: What do you mean by “creator”? Picasso said: I am the creator only when I make something unique, one-of-a-kind. When I imitate—what kind of creator am I?

Hence when poets, painters, sculptors create something truly original, they are nearest to God—as near as devotees, as near as saints. As near as Buddha is in meditation, so near is the artist carving Ajanta, painting Ellora—by another route.

Whenever you create something—and it is original, not imitation—there is no greater prayer. You are nearest to God then; you are like Him in that moment. You too are a creator. That is why creation brings such joy. Even a small thing you make, and you are so delighted.

A little child builds a house of cards and announces to the neighborhood: I have built a house! Or erects a sandcastle, which will collapse in a moment—and yet see the child’s joy! He dances.

The moments of joy in life are moments of creation. When you create, you are blissful. Lives that pass without creation taste only sorrow.

Why? Because in the moment of making, there is a glimpse of the Creator. He is the Creator; in that moment you too become a small creator. Plant a sapling; when it flowers, a certain joy comes—the same joy in a drop-form that God feels seeing the whole world blossom. The quantity differs; the quality does not.

Nanak says, He has ordained beings of countless hues, whose names are innumerable and infinite.

If you recognize this vast spread—this creativity of God—you have already taken the first step. God Himself is difficult to recognize; He remains hidden. But if you can recognize His visible creation, the first recognition has happened. See the world! It is suffused with deep order. The moon rises, the sun rises, the stars wheel. Seasons come and flowers bloom. Morning arrives and birds sing. Streams flow into the ocean; the ocean swells into clouds and pours back into streams. There is an order. The world is a cosmos, not a chaos. It is not anarchy; it is a harmonious arrangement. If you begin to see this great order…

The more you see it, and the more you perceive the river of law flowing through existence, the more you will remember God’s hand. Order cannot exist without hands. Where there is such vast order, there must be vast hands. That is why the Hindus say He has a thousand hands—meaning infinitely many. Two hands could not manage this.

Nanak says: He made night, seasons, dates, weekdays; air, water, fire, the nether regions—He made all. And in the midst He made the earth so that on the journey to the Infinite you could rest.

But it is a dharmashala. Do not make a house there and settle. People have built all kinds of houses and forgotten. Like a man who halts in an inn at night and in the morning forgets it is an inn—and begins to live there, taking on the inn’s worries as his own. Then he suffers and asks for peace. And whenever someone tells him, Why are you making the inn your home? he says, It is difficult to leave now—give me time. Slowly-slowly I will leave.

It is not a matter of leaving slowly. In fact, it is not about leaving at all; it is about seeing. Does seeing require time? Seeing happens in a flash. Time is unnecessary for seeing. If you are willing, you can see clearly that where you are is a dharmashala—because you were not always there.

Where were you before birth? Where will you be after death? A small fair for a few days—and in those few days you cling so stubbornly! You clutch what is; you even clutch what is not. A man clings to the property he has, and also to the desires and dreams of the future.

Mulla Nasruddin built a house and took me to see it. He had made a big garden, with bathing pools. This is a hot-water pool, he said—for winter. Then, pointing to another, This is the cold-water pool—for summer. Then he showed a third: This is a pool without water. I asked, What for? He said, For those times when one does not want to bathe.

Man arranges for bathing and also for not bathing. He arranges for what he has—and also for what he does not have. You are tormented by what you possess—and by what you may possess someday. Watch your mind and you will find it crowded with worries from the past—things that no longer exist. An event twenty years ago is still playing in your mind; nothing of it remains. And anxieties about things that may happen twenty years hence. You multiply worries a thousandfold.

And for whom are you worrying? For a wayside inn built along the road. The people you have met in this inn—husband, wife, son, mother, father—you met them on the roadside. And you are tormented for their sake. You have not one concern to search for the real home—and all the other concerns.

Nanak says, He made the earth as a dharmashala.

Understand this symbol well.

And there, according to their karma, they are considered.

And whatever you do here is significant, for your destiny is decided by it. The world is a dharmashala, where you halt to move further. But you are busy with many doings. The inn will be taken away; the web of your deeds will remain. You will die; the inn will be left behind—but what you did in the inn will follow you. It will become your shadow. It will chase you through births. The final judgment rests on what you did—your karma.

Think on this. If you remember it is a dharmashala and keep that remembrance alive, many deeds will vanish at once. Will you get angry at your wife? What is the purpose? It is a meeting of two moments—and then a parting. In these two moments you take her as your own; hence the anger, the quarrel. She will be left behind; at death you cannot take her with you. But the anger you expressed, the hurt you caused—those acts will go with you. Dreams will break, but what you did in your dreams will follow. It is a costly bargain—nothing gained, everything lost. In the world, man gains nothing; he only loses.

Nanak says: if you can keep alive the remembrance that this is a dharmashala, ninety-nine percent of your actions will stop. Notice how you behave on a railway platform, in a waiting room. Even if someone’s shoe lands on your foot as he rushes by, you say, It’s a station—crowded—and you do not get angry.

Mulla Nasruddin did not marry for a long time. At fifty his friends asked, Why not? He said, I was coming out of a cinema. I stepped on a woman’s foot. She spun around like the goddess Kali incarnate—fire in her eyes! I thought she would kill me. Then she suddenly calmed down on seeing me and said, Oh, it’s nothing—I thought it was my husband. From that day I decided not to get into the marriage mess.

A stranger—why take the trouble? We forgive strangers; we cannot forgive our own. Strange indeed: we forgive the stranger, not the near ones. Why? What is the difference? The stranger is a stranger; that relation is of the inn. The near one is presumed to be “ours”—that relation is of “home.”

He who sees the whole world as a dharmashala finds all to be strangers—and they are. Even if a wife lives with you for thirty years, do you think she ceases to be a stranger? Do you think living together turns the other into “one’s own”? It is an illusion. In this world, no one can truly become “mine.” Only the Divine can be “mine.” But you have no quest for Him—and you sit considering strangers to be your own.

A son is born in your house—since he is born of you, you think he is not a stranger. But life will prove you wrong. A father cannot even decide the course of his son’s life. He wants to make him something, and the son becomes something else. Whose father is fulfilled by his son? You have seen any? Born of you, yet a stranger. The father cannot predict the son’s future, nor mold him into his plan; the greatest of fathers fail. A husband tries his best to improve the wife; the wife tries her best to improve the husband. Who succeeds? Improvement attempts end in worsening.

Because we are all strangers. We live by our own karmas. No one else can change us. Our journeys are separate. We meet for a while at a crossroads. We make too much of that meeting.

What difference do seven rounds around the sacred fire make? Will seven rounds make a woman yours? Seven thousand rounds? Seven is the beginning; later you make millions of rounds in life—no difference. You remain where you were.

In this world, otherness cannot vanish. However close you come, distance remains. This is the pain of all lovers. The lover longs to come so close that no distance remains—but the closer you come, the more you see the distance. When you were far, you hoped closeness would end it; coming close, you find there is no way to end it. Bodies can be close; the inner distance remains. You have your mind; your beloved has hers—how will these meet? In this world, union is false; separation is true. Union is a dream. Only union with the Divine is union—there is but one union.

That is why Kabir, Nanak and Dadu sing: We are brides of Ram. Kabir says: We understood—the bride can be only of Ram; there the union is complete, inner and outer distances fall; thirst is fulfilled; we meet the One who is ours; separation ends.

Before that, restlessness will remain. Draw water from many wells—the thirst won’t quench. Wander on a thousand ghats—wandering will continue. Only on that one ghat does wandering end. But you give that no thought; and whatever you do in this state of wandering is being accumulated—those karmas are piling up, from which your future will be shaped.

Understand this: whatever you do each day sets your tomorrow. If you got up this morning and were angry, you created a samskara. If you were angry yesterday morning, the samskara grew deeper. If the day before you were angry again, a strong groove was carved. Tomorrow morning you will likely be angry again—for man lives by conditioning until he attains Buddhahood. Only the awakened does not live by conditioning; he does not live by habit; he lives by awareness. You live by habit. What happened yesterday happens today; what happens today will happen tomorrow.

Whatever you do, you are manufacturing habits. The law of karma is very scientific; it has nothing to do with metaphysics. It is simple psychology: what you do tends to become easier to do; what you don’t do tends to become harder. Doing becomes habit; you go on repeating. Look back at your life—you will find you are a repetition machine.

People come and say, We don’t want to be angry, but it happens. I ask, When it happens, what do you do? They say, Then we repent; we feel bad. I tell them: Do one thing—forget about anger for now; at least stop repenting. That you can do! They protest: What kind of teaching is this? We couldn’t drop anger even with repentance; if we drop repentance too, how will anger drop? I say: Look at your life—repentance hasn’t helped; now try without it. At least break half the habit. Your complete habit is: anger—then repentance. You tried from the anger side; it didn’t work. Try the other side. Drop the repentance; that costs nothing. Anger may feel costly—sometimes you feel it necessary. But repentance is purely personal; it concerns no one.

Anger involves the other. Someone abuses you—How not to be angry? And if you don’t react, what will people say? If you let one person get away with it, the whole town will! So anger is social; repentance is private. Drop the private one—no one else is involved. Sit alone and repent? Please, drop it. After a few days they come back: It is as hard to drop repentance as it is to drop anger.

A woman comes: her husband has been a drunkard for twenty years; since marriage she has been saying: Don’t drink. He drinks; she nags. She says: His habit won’t go—please help. I say: Do one thing: for three months, stop nagging him. He is chemically addicted; after twenty years, alcohol runs in his veins. He cannot just drop it. I’ll deal with him later; first you give me proof that for three months you won’t nag.

On the third day she returns: I can’t. I’ve developed a habit too. Then I say: Now you see how hard it is for your husband. You cannot stop saying a few words—what chemical pulls are there in words? Just stop speaking. Let him drink. For twenty years, your nagging hasn’t helped; for three months, don’t say a word. If you manage that, I will approach him: Your wife could drop a habit; so can you. But she cannot complete three months. Until then, I won’t speak to your husband.

Now she understands the difficulty: I can’t even get through a day. I have to tell him eight or ten times daily. He drinks twice; she nags ten times. That too is a drug. All habits are like alcohol. Repetition strengthens them.

Karma’s law says simply: what you do, you increase the probability of doing again; what you don’t do, you increase the probability of not doing. You are staying in an inn but behaving as if it were home—forming the wrong habit. The inn will be taken away; it was never yours. But what you did in the inn will go with you—that is yours. Nothing goes with you but karma. So act with care.

You pick up someone’s diamond. The diamond will lie there when you die; but the act of stealing goes with you. What you do becomes your true wealth.

If you do wrong, you steer your future wrongly; if you do right, you steer it rightly. If you live with awareness, you pave the way to freedom. The more aware you are, the more habits break. Then you don’t live by habit but by wakefulness; in each situation you decide out of awareness, not past conditioning. Someone insults you; your old habit is to fight.

On a plane a pilot and a passenger got into a quarrel—foul abuse. Another passenger said, Gentlemen, at least remember there are ladies here. The passenger retorted, Let the ladies get down if they’re so refined, but this fight will happen!

Mid-air, he says: Let the ladies please get off… He is not in his senses. He doesn’t know what he’s saying—but the fight must take place! No one is in his own control who is unconscious. You do what you do helplessly. You don’t clearly know what you are doing, or why.

Wake up a little. First awakening: this world is not valuable enough for you to be so disturbed. Someone abuses you—neither he nor his abuse is worth your disturbance; nor is your ego worth the upheaval. This is an inn. If someone steps on your foot, don’t be upset.

Mulla Nasruddin was coming out at intermission. He stepped on a man’s foot. The man flared up, but thought: It was dark; lights just came on—people can’t see after the dark; it must have been a mistake. Then Nasruddin returned and asked: Brother, did I step on your foot? The man thought he had come to apologize. He said: Yes. Nasruddin turned back and called to his wife: Come, this is our line! They had selected their place by stepping on feet.

The one abusing you has his own motive. You need not be disturbed. It is crowded here; everyone is searching for his own thing. No one has anything to do with anyone else. Each plays his own game. There will be some pushing and jostling—so crowded the road, so much traffic.

If you can see this and keep this understanding, anger will drop; hatred, envy, jealousy will fall away—and the actions born out of them will depart. The day your hatred-related actions drop, compassion will arise in you for people, for everyone is unconscious. Where yesterday anger arose, now compassion will arise. You will feel people are lost in darkness; no one is at fault—they are asleep. If a sleeping man mutters abuse, you don’t mind—you say: he is asleep. This is everyone’s state.

If a drunkard abuses, you say: he is drunk. This is everyone’s condition—the intoxication of karmas of many lives, deep sleep. Compassion will arise. If you wake up even a little, you will feel pity for how much trouble people take, mistaking the inn for home—litigating in courts over whose the inn is!

Compassion will arise. And with compassion, your actions will change. Where there were sins, merits will begin. Where you were ready to harm, you will be ready to help—even one who abuses you.

Hence Nanak says: jnana and daya—wisdom and compassion. Wisdom is awakening within; compassion is the transformation of your actions due to that awakening. Ignorance within, violence without—they go together. Wisdom within, compassion without—they too go together.

According to karma there is judgment.

It is amusing that you think noble thoughts and do ignoble deeds. You do wrong, you think lofty. But your thinking is not what will be judged; your doing is your proof. Actions are your testimony, not your ideas. Even criminals entertain lofty thoughts. Go to prisons—you will hear high ideals. Beautiful thinking is often a trick to enable bad doing.

Understand this—it is subtle. When one does wrong, remorse arises. When you are harsh, angry, insulting, an inner regret appears: This was not right. To balance the inner scales you then think good thoughts—of compassion and kindness: Next time I will be kind. The inner imbalance created by wrong is weighted by good sentiments—so that in your own eyes, your bad act gets covered. The wicked think beautiful thoughts.

And the reverse is also true: those who do good often think bad thoughts. If you awaken, you will see both are illusions. The thief thinks of charity; thus you find thieves donating—building temples, feeding the poor, distributing blankets in winter. Having stolen a hundred thousand, one feels like donating a thousand—to balance. The sinner bathes in the Ganga, offers alms, and thinks: all settled. He returns home light. Light—so that he can sin again, now with less tension, because he has a technique: when you sin, do some merit.

Hence this country has become so sinful—because it has found the trick of merit. Today it is hard to find a land as sinful as India. The reason? The Ganges flows here. Go, bathe, return. Sin, then offer prasad at the temple. Sin, break a coconut for Hanuman. Poor Hanuman—what has he to do with your sins? You make him a partner. Err here, mend there, then ready again.

But your thoughts will not be counted. What you do—that you become. And notice: whenever a noble act is to be done, you postpone it: tomorrow. But the evil you never postpone: now! If you plan to murder, you do it now. Why? Because you know: if you postpone, it will be postponed forever. Anger—you erupt now. No one says, Come back tomorrow, I’ll be angry then. You curse someone—he drops everything. His wife is dying; he was going to buy medicine. Let her die tomorrow if she must; first, let me settle this! Deep down you know postponement means never.

Gurdjieff’s father, dying, told him: Remember one thing—whenever you feel like being angry, wait twenty-four hours. If someone abuses you, tell him: I will reply after twenty-four hours—what can I do? My father took this promise. Gurdjieff was nine, he didn’t understand, but he promised.

Later he wrote: My life changed because of that promise. Has anyone ever been angry after twenty-four hours? In a day, you see the stupidity. In ninety-nine cases you see the person was right—it wasn’t an abuse but a description. If he said, Thief!—you discover: indeed, I am a thief. If he said, Dishonest!—indeed I am. Diagnosis is not an insult; it is help. Gurdjieff many times went back to thank people: What you said was right—thank you for pointing out what I could not see.

Or, after a day he would say: I thought a lot, but your statement doesn’t apply to me—so why be angry? It has nothing to do with me. If it doesn’t fit, why rage at a falsehood?

Have you noticed? You get angry when the truth is spoken. If you are not a thief, call him all the names—you won’t be angry, for there is no sting. Truth hurts; falsehood has no power.

We do the bad instantly; the good we schedule for tomorrow.

A Marwari sits behind his khus curtain in the heat, doing accounts. A beggar asks for four paisa. The Marwari says: Go away; there is no money here. Some bread? Get lost; no bread. Some cloth? Nothing—move on. The beggar says: Then what are you doing inside? Come along with me; whatever we get, we’ll split.

Even to give two paisa you postpone. To give two breads, you put your whole being to it—to get rid of the beggar. You dare not do good now; you are always ready for the bad.

Reverse it and your life will change. Postpone the bad—say: tomorrow. Do the good now. Who knows of tomorrow? If your rule becomes: postpone the bad—it won’t happen. Do the good immediately—much good will happen. At present you do the opposite: you do the bad now, postpone the good. The good never happens; the bad happens daily. Your garland of deeds becomes a chain of thorns; no flowers appear.

Nanak says: The judgment is of your deeds. He is True, and His court is True.

Remember: only if you are true will you gain entry. Whom are you deceiving? You can deceive the whole world, but can you deceive yourself? You know what you are. The world may worship you as a saint—but within, you know who you are. How will you deceive the one hiding within? That hidden inner presence is the Divine. How will you cheat Him? There you are naked; nothing can be covered. Only if you become true will you be admitted.

People ask: How to attain God? The real question should be: How to become true? Forget attaining God. People say: God does not appear. You should ask: Why doesn’t He appear to me?

False eyes cannot see the Truth. To see Truth you need true eyes. To experience Truth you need a true heart. To recognize Truth you must become true—like knows like. Where you stand, how you stand—you are fake.

By false I don’t mean you merely speak untruth. Your very being is false. Your faces are masks. Your behavior is false. You say one thing, think another, do a third. Even you cannot trust yourself. Do you even want to do what you do? Do you even think what you say?

You will be afraid—because if you begin to become true, the house you built in this inn will start to crumble. In this dharmashala—the biggest untruth you built is that you made it a home. You sit in a paper boat and want to sail. How will you sail? You’ll stay stuck at the shore—afraid to put the boat in water; it will melt and sink.

People come and say: If we become true, life will be very difficult. It will—because you built your life on lies. In the beginning, it will be hard. But not changing is also hard. What joy have you known? What flower of bliss has bloomed in your life? What fragrance has come? What do you have that makes life worthwhile? Nothing is visible.

It is hard even now—but you are accustomed. When you try to be true, habits will break. Someone you don’t love, you tell: Your visit is a great fortune! While within you think: What an ill-omened face to see at dawn! The day is ruined.

If the other were awake, he would see your lie—your eyes will betray you. Your face, your gestures will not show joy. Your words will be one thing, your lips another—no harmony.

When one is truly delighted, he doesn’t have to say so—every pore sings. But others are asleep; they too take lies as truth—that is why flattery succeeds. If the listener were alert, he would see you are saying something false.

In England there was the poet Yeats. He received the Nobel Prize. At the felicitation, as usual, those who always criticized now praised. He was simple and true. He shrank in his chair for two hours, embarrassed by the lies. When it ended, the chairman gently nudged him: You haven’t fallen asleep? Yeats said: I’m not asleep, but if I had known, I wouldn’t have come. The chairman announced: We have collected twenty-five thousand pounds for you. They thought he would be pleased. He stood and said: Had I known that for a mere twenty-five thousand pounds I would have to hear so many lies, I would not have come. Too costly—two hours of lies for twenty-five thousand!

If you are a bit alert, no one can flatter you—you will see the lie. But you are not aware. People lie around you, and you don’t notice. You lie—and you don’t even notice what you are saying. Then you get entangled. You tell a woman: You are so beautiful; I love you. Later you’re trapped. You were perhaps lying; now the chain begins; tomorrow you will regret.

Mulla Nasruddin’s wife said over morning tea: You were the one who chased me; I never chased you. And now look at your behavior! If this is how you were going to behave, why did you pursue me? Nasruddin said: You’re right. Have you ever seen a mousetrap run after the mouse? The mouse gets trapped by himself.

Women are smart; therefore no husband can tell his wife: You chased me. Women don’t make that mistake; they know the trouble will come later. The man always gets caught; the woman watches, listens, nods, never takes the initiative.

When Nasruddin was dying, his son asked: Any formula from life’s experience? He said: Three things. One: if people are patient, fruits ripen and fall by themselves; no need to climb the tree. Two: if people are patient, others die by themselves; no need for wars. Three: if people are truly patient, women will chase men; no need to chase them. These three, I learned as the essence of life. But no one lives by essence or by experience.

What do you say? What do you do? If you act with awareness, ninety-nine percent drops away. One percent remains—that is enough for the dharmashala. The ninety-nine percent was for making a house here. What remains is the life of a sannyasin. Only the essential will remain; the unnecessary will fall away. The unnecessary is the householder’s turmoil. How many needless things have you brought home!

I stayed in a house crammed with so many things it was hard to move. They were rich but living like the poor—no space. Whatever is advertised, they must have it. The house is full—hard to live. I said: Is this a home or a museum? Almost everything is useless. Get rid of them. A house needs space; the very name “home” means space. Keep going like this and soon you will be forced to live outside.

You hoard junk—things long useless you keep: maybe someday. Eskimos follow a rule the whole world should adopt: on the first day of each year they give away everything in the house, and begin again. Thus their little homes are the cleanest. Even so, they don’t own much; but this rule keeps them light. If you had to give away everything each New Year’s Day, how many things would you have never brought?

You not only collect useless things, you collect useless thoughts. Someone goes on pouring in nonsense—you listen. You read anything in the papers. You never ask: Do I need these thoughts? Have you ever told someone: I don’t need this—why dump trash in my head? It’s easy to put in, hard to take out. Ask meditators—when they sit to empty it, it won’t budge; it has taken root. You were not aware while collecting.

You do wrong acts, collect useless stuff, and useless thoughts. Slowly you become a junk shop. Be a little aware.

Nanak says: with each act you are building your life. So with each act, consider.

Only the true gain entry in His court. There, the authentic, the “panch”—the approved—shine. The worthy, the true—only they get there. By His grace they receive signs—tokens.

As truth grows in your life, signs of His grace begin to appear. You will find His hints everywhere. For now you see none; you have no recognition. But as you grow true, you will find His commands arising within your conscience. Grow true, and leaf by leaf you will begin to recognize Him.

He wants to guide you; He wants to tell you what to do, what not to do. But within you there is no emptiness to hear. Your own noise is so loud that His voice cannot be heard. Daily you will begin to receive tokens of His grace.

For now, none. You live by your own support—and what support is that? Once you begin to become true, you begin to live by His support. Then a new movement, a new dimension opens.

There, the raw and the ripe are decided.

Nanak says: only there are people truly tested.

Night, seasons, lunar days and weekdays; air, water, fire and the nether regions—
Within all this He established the earth as a dharmashala.
Within it He ordained beings of countless kinds; their names innumerable, infinite.
According to karma they are judged. The True One Himself; His court is True.
There the authentic, the approved, shine. By His grace, the sign is received.
There, the raw and the ripe are known. Nanak: going there, one comes to know.

Only before the Divine does the test happen—who is raw, who is ripe? What is “raw” and “ripe”? Before the Divine, what melts is raw; what endures is ripe. Make this your touchstone: whatever you do, ask—can I place this act openly before the Divine? Or will I fear? Will I hide? Will I wish that He not see?

If you fear and want to hide, don’t do it. Nothing can be hidden from Him. He sees through and through. Nothing can be concealed from that mirror.

Keep one test in your mind for whatever you think, say, or do—like a goldsmith keeps a testing stone. First he rubs; when the stone says “Yes,” he proceeds. Make this your stone: Can I reveal this before the Divine? Then act with ease. If your heart trembles and says, This you cannot expose—don’t do it.

You will begin to ripen. The potter bakes pots: the raw will dissolve in rain; the baked will hold water. In the market you knock on a pot to test—raw or baked—for the baked has a different sound.

As you ripen, the resonance of your life will change; you will hear an inner music. And His hints, His tokens, will come. The signs are these: you become more peaceful, more happy, more joyous. A deep shade of contentment surrounds you. You feel a sense of grace, a spontaneous “Ah!”—without cause. For no reason, an inner dance.

Sahjobai said: Showers are falling without clouds. No clouds are seen, yet there is rain. No outward cause—and yet you are radiant. Your every pore smiles. No treasure has visibly arrived, and yet the heart is grateful. These are the signs.

As you ripen, the rainwater will begin to fill you. His joy is forever raining. The shower is always falling—but you are raw; you dissolve in it. Instead of being fulfilled, you vanish. Because of your rawness, God’s blessing becomes a curse. When you ripen, what you once felt as curses you will suddenly find to be blessings.

The test of people is there—but don’t wait till then. You are being made every moment. Begin today—only then will you be able to present yourself before Him. Prepare now. So much time has been wasted; it is already late. Do not waste another moment. Live with the Divine in mind—for that is the Home. And this world is a dharmashala.

Enough for today.