Ek Omkar Satnam #20

Each word asks to be understood: ‘Restraint is the furnace, patience the goldsmith, the intellect the anvil, and knowing the hammer. Fear is the bellows and austerity is the fire. Feeling is the vessel into which the nectar is poured. In the mint of Truth the coin of the Word is cast. Only those upon whom his glance of grace falls can do this. Nanak says, they are exhilarated by that gracious glance.’

Restraint means giving life a direction, a path, a destination, a goal. Without restraint a person runs in all directions at once—he does not know where he is going, what he wants, what he is aiming for. A life without restraint is like a blind man shooting an arrow into the dark. A life of restraint means a clear sense of the target and releasing the arrow in the direction where the target actually is. If you shoot at random, like a blind man in the dark, there is no possibility of attaining anything. No accomplishment is possible without restraint.

So the first meaning of restraint is: one direction, one destination. The moment you choose a destination, you must gather the strength to drop whatever is contrary to it. You cannot have everything in life. If you want one thing, you will have to leave a thousand. The one who tries to have everything ends empty-handed. To gain at all is to choose.

You have come to listen to me. Even for this choice you have had to restrain yourselves. Some work at home remains unfinished. This time could have been used otherwise—you could have gone to the market to make money. Time had many uses, but you made a decision and came here. That means you left certain possibilities and chose one.

Each moment contains infinite possibilities. Every single instant can take you in thousands of directions. The person who goes to a prostitute’s house does so by renouncing the temple—he could have gone to the temple. He exercises restraint in not going to the temple. The one who goes to the temple could have gone to the prostitute; he too exercises restraint in not going there. And there were a thousand other possibilities besides.

With every step you take, you leave a thousand steps untaken. Only the one who never walks needs no restraint. Whoever walks must make conscious choices, step by step.

Direction, path, goal—when these three come into harmony, restraint flowers in your life. Nanak says, restraint is the furnace in which gold is refined and dross is burnt away. Consciously choosing the goal turns your life into an arrow. Then you are truly going somewhere. You are no longer stumbling from corner to corner, no longer being pushed around by the crowd, no longer dragged by your desires wherever they pull.

This is the basic difference between the man of desires and the man of restraint. The man of desires runs in a thousand directions at once. Gradually he becomes deranged—he must. A life without direction leads to madness, because such a person wants to do a thousand things simultaneously. He sits to eat and cannot even finish eating because the shop keeps running in his head; at the shop he busies his mind with a thousand other tasks. If he had a thousand hands, a thousand feet, a thousand bodies, you would see his real condition—he would run in a thousand directions at once, and those thousand selves would never meet again.

This is also how it is inside. Your mind, without hands or feet, rushes in a thousand directions at the same time. That is why you are fragmented, in pieces. Until you become whole, you will not be worthy to be offered at the feet of the Divine—only the whole can be offered there.

Out of this need for wholeness arose old notions. In Islam there is a belief that if a person dies after his hand has been broken, or a finger cut off, or an operation performed, he is unfit to reach the feet of God. Hence many Muslims fear surgery; even when they undergo it, they feel guilty—as if they were becoming unworthy before God. In Pakhtunistan, if a Pashtun has his hand cut off, he preserves it so that when he dies it can be buried with him, and when he stands before God he will not be incomplete.

The point is significant, but its meaning has been misunderstood. You can reach God only as a whole. Hindus, too, carried a similar notion. You have heard that when men were sacrificed in ancient fire rituals, they searched for a whole man; even a cut finger made one unfit for the offering.

A prince once had his finger crushed in a doorway; it broke. He was a devotee. He turned to his servant and said, “By God’s grace, only a finger broke—who knows, a noose could have been my fate.” The servant said, “This devotion of yours is beyond me. This is excessive. You are hurt, bleeding, and still you thank God! You are just consoling yourself.”

The prince said, “Wait. Time will tell—because faith cannot be argued. Only time can show whether the faithful were right or wrong.”

They both went hunting and lost their way. In the forest some avadhuts caught them—they wanted to offer a human sacrifice. When they stood the prince up, they saw his finger was broken. “This man is useless to us,” they said. The servant was whole; they sacrificed him. As they were preparing the servant, the prince said, “Remember what I told you: it was God’s grace that my finger broke; a noose could have been my fate. Time alone can tell—and time is telling now.”

Whole men were sacrificed in rituals. But to misunderstand this is foolish. The meaning is simply that only the integrated can enter the Divine. Not that fingers make you incomplete—your head might be cut off and still you are not incomplete. But when consciousness is cut to pieces, then you are incomplete. Your mind is like mercury—leave it and it splits into a thousand globules. Try to pick one and it breaks into ten more. Your mind is like that—so many fragments rushing in different directions: one going north, one east, one west, one south; one wants wealth, another wants religion—you are pulled everywhere.

Mulla Nasruddin was looking for a wife—he wanted a very beautiful woman. When he finally married, he brought home a very ugly one. His friends asked, “What did you do?” He said, “A big problem arose. The man whose house I went to see had four daughters. ‘The first is twenty-five,’ he said, ‘and I have arranged a dowry of twenty-five thousand.’ She was very beautiful. I asked about the others. ‘The second is thirty—with thirty thousand. The third is thirty-five—with thirty-five thousand.’ He hesitated about the fourth. I insisted. ‘She is fifty, with fifty thousand.’ And without knowing how, out of my mouth came, ‘Don’t you have one who is sixty?’ And I returned home with the fifty-year-old. Only on the way did I realize what I had done!”

The mind is divided. One part wants beauty, another wants money. So don’t trust the mind. You go to buy one thing and come back with something else. You’ve experienced it: you go to market for one thing and return with another. You come to earth to take one thing and leave with something else. Do not trust your mind; it will leave you nowhere. Trusting the mind, you will be fragmented like mercury.

Restraint means: stop trusting the mind. Do not listen to it. Listen to the witness hidden behind the mind. If you listen to the witness, you will remember what you have come to this world to attain, what you have come to purchase in this marketplace. That remembrance becomes your goal. Then you will have the strength to leave the many paths that branch away in different directions. Restraint means the capacity to drop the nonessential for the essential—to drop that which has no ultimate value, from which no final fulfillment, no joy, peace, or truth will flower.

It too has its temptations, its excitements. You say, “What’s the harm? Let me just step off the path and pluck this flower; I’ll return.” But as you step off, four more flowers appear ahead—and your journey changes. Move an inch, keep one small attachment to the ephemeral, bend a little—and you are gone.

There are a thousand paths for wandering, and only one path for arriving. Hence a powerful remembrance is needed. Constant recollection is needed: for wandering there are a thousand means; for arriving, one. There are millions to make you stray; there is one to help you arrive. If you want to wander, there is no end—lifetimes upon lifetimes. That is what you have been doing. If you want to arrive, there is one way.

Remember, Truth is not many; Truth is one. Falsehoods are many—countless. There is one thing to gain and infinite to drop. Children’s puzzles show it well: many paths to mislead, one doorway to exit. They look like real roads, but when you walk them, you find a wall at the end.

Life is such a puzzle—endless, with neither beginning nor end. That is why the Guru is valuable. The puzzle is so vast that if you search only by yourself, you will go astray a thousand times. Then the danger: after wandering so much, you may conclude there is no way out. You may fall into despair and give up. Or worse: wandering may become your habit—what we repeat, we become skilled at. Wander enough and you will become adept at it; the right path could lie before you and you would avoid it.

The Guru’s only role is this: one who has found the door, and who stops you from straying; who says, “However alluring that path looks, it leads nowhere. In the end you will find a wall—no door there. Accumulate wealth—what will you gain? In the end, a wall. Achieve position—what then? The way is lost. Gather prestige—what will you get? Those from whom you seek prestige have nothing themselves; what can they give you? You ask the blind to honor you—what value has their opinion? Even if the blind honor you, what is that worth? A bubble on water—gone before it forms.”

Nanak says, ‘Restraint is the furnace.’

And he chose the metaphor carefully. Restraint is not a bed of roses; it is fire. The mind wants roses, while restraint is fire. Hence the mind avoids restraint. It finds arguments for indulgence, and arguments against restraint. It calls indulgence enjoyment and restraint suffering—when in fact it is the reverse.

Indulgence is suffering, because the more you indulge, the more you decay. Every indulgence leaves you in dejection; every indulgence breaks you a little more, distorts you a little more. You had little to begin with, and what you had is snatched away. Each indulgence turns you into a beggar. Yet the mind says, “Indulge—the time is slipping away. Who knows if it will come again! Indulge—this chance at life may not return.” The mind never says, “Restrain yourself—this chance at life may not return! Restrain yourself—life is running out!” No, the mind counsels the opposite, because it always craves pleasure.

Understand this a little deeper. The mind always craves pleasure, but always gets pain. It is as if every door of pain has “pleasure” written upon it. Seeing “pleasure,” the mind enters—only to find pain within. And it seems every door of pleasure has “pain” written on it as well.

Gibran tells a lovely story. At the beginning of the world, God created a goddess of Beauty and a goddess of Ugliness. He sent them to earth. The journey from sky to earth was long; their clothes and bodies were covered in dust. They came to a lake to bathe. They placed their clothes on the shore and went in naked. Beauty swam far out. Ugliness came out first, put on Beauty’s clothes, and fled. When Beauty returned, she was shocked—her clothes were gone, dawn was breaking, people were stirring. She was forced to put on Ugliness’s garments. Gibran says: since then Beauty has roamed in the clothes of Ugliness, and Ugliness in the clothes of Beauty.

So it is: pain roams wearing pleasure’s clothes; the false roams wearing the garments of the true. And the mind is deceived by the garments—inside is their opposite.

Restraint will at first look like pain. At first it will seem arduous. Try getting up at five in the morning—how hard it is! The whole body rebels, the mind refuses: “Tomorrow—what’s the hurry? It’s cold, and sleep is so sweet.” Sleep has never given you anything, yet the mind insists.

You have no idea of the joy that is rising outside in the form of the sun, the joy hidden in birdsong, in flowers opening, in the dew of dawn—in the very coming of morning. There is no hour more beautiful than dawn, no moment as fresh. Miss the morning and you will search all day for freshness and not find it. But the mind says: “A little more sleep, a little more oblivion, a little more rest, one more turn.”

This is the mind’s argument for every kind of sleep. Awakening seems painful, sleep pleasant. Yet only awakening brings joy, the great joy; sleep makes you lose.

So Nanak says, ‘Restraint is the furnace.’

Gold is refined there—but one needs the strength, the readiness to pass through fire. Only by passing through hardship does one reach the supreme joy. You pass through suffering too, but unwillingly—that is not restraint. When you pass through suffering consciously, when you accept it as the path, when you understand it is the necessary furnace through which you will be refined, cleansed, purified—then the entire alchemy of suffering changes.

Everyone passes through suffering—the worldly and the renunciate. The worldly passes unwillingly, crying—he misses. The one who passes awake, with acceptance, turns suffering into a step; he goes beyond it. Restraint means making suffering the path, the means—not being overwhelmed by it, but using it as a stairway and rising beyond. Like a furnace.

‘And patience is the goldsmith.’

When gold is placed in the furnace, great patience is needed. Hurry will not do there. The hasty always miss; those who are not hasty always arrive. Hurry means you have not accepted suffering, hence you are in a rush. You have not understood its grace—that it refines, beautifies, frees you from the useless. You have not yet recognized suffering as a friend. The one who sees the friend in suffering is restrained. Seeing the friend, where is the hurry? He can be patient. And the Divine is attained through patience—an infinite waiting. This is no trifle to be gotten now.

You sow seeds. Seasonal flowers sprout in two or three weeks; by the sixth week they are blooming—and by the twelfth they are withered. But plant deodar—trees that live a hundred, two hundred, four hundred years. In America there are trees five thousand years old; they take a long time to grow. For years the seed lies dormant, then germination happens. Seasonal flowers bloom quickly.

The petty pleasures of life come quickly—and disappear just as quickly. Remember this arithmetic: the quicker it comes, the quicker it goes. If you want to attain the Divine, which abides forever, you need infinite patience.

This does not mean you will get it only after an infinite time. It can happen in a single instant—but you must have the capacity to wait infinitely.

Understand this well: the more patience you have, the sooner it happens. The more you hurry, the longer it takes. Why? Because patience deepens you; hurry is the sign of the shallow. Hurry is childish. Small children plant mango pits and dig them up an hour later to see if the sprout has appeared. That sprout will never come. Keep digging—how will it emerge? Have some patience.

You see it: the village farmer is more patient; he has a different peace. The city shopkeeper is less patient; correspondingly his peace is less. The deeper you go into the countryside, the calmer people you meet. With nature, patience is needed. Sow today—you will not harvest tomorrow. Passing through patience, they grow peaceful. But the one who wants the flower of God to bloom has resolved to farm the Infinite.

Nanak’s father kept telling him to work—“At least start farming.” Nanak said, “I do farm.” His father said, “Now your mind is completely gone. When do you farm? Where is the crop? What have you earned? I only see you sitting at home.” Nanak said, “What you see is right. I farm in another way. What I have earned is within me. With God’s grace, if you get eyes, you could see it. I have earned much, and harvested much—but the crop is inner, subtle—ordinary eyes cannot see.”

The one who walks the religious path wants to harvest the Infinite; accordingly, he needs Infinite patience. Patience means: make no demands. Don’t ask, “When?” When it happens—His will. When it happens—I accept. Even if aeons pass, do not say, “I’ve waited so long—why not yet?”

An ancient Hindu tale I love: Narada was going to heaven. He asked an old ascetic, “Any message?” The ascetic said, “If you meet God, ask how much longer. I have been practicing for three births.” He was ancient. Narada said, “I will ask.”

Nearby, under another tree, a young minstrel sat playing his ektara, singing. Just to tease him, Narada asked, “Do you want me to ask anything of God?” The young man kept singing, didn’t even look up. Narada shook him. He said, “No—His grace is boundless. I always receive what I need. Don’t trouble Him on my account. If you can, offer my thanks.”

Narada returned. He told the old ascetic, “Forgive me—I asked. God said: as many leaves as are on the tree under which he sits, that many births remain.” The old man was furious. He flung his scripture, broke his rosary, raged, “Enough! Injustice! Three births of austerity, fasting—and still so many? Impossible!”

Narada went to the young minstrel: “Though you didn’t ask, I asked. God said: as many leaves are on the tree under which you sit…” The youth leapt up dancing with his ektara: “Amazing! Am I worthy of so soon? Think how many trees are on earth, how many leaves! Only this tree’s leaves? In so few births? This is too soon, more than I deserve. How can I bear this grace? How can I express it?” He danced—and the story says, dancing thus he entered samadhi. The body dropped. What was to happen after countless births happened that very instant. That which one waits for infinitely, happens in an instant.

Nanak says, ‘Patience the goldsmith, intellect the anvil, knowledge the hammer.’

We can do two things with the intellect. We have done one of them: we use it like a bag, not like an anvil. We use it as a sack to stuff with information instead of as an anvil for forging knowing. We read scriptures, listen to sages, and stuff everything in—like a beggar’s bag: trash and treasure alike. Newspapers in there, the Vedas in there, the radio stuffed in; someone’s abuse in there and someone’s mantra alongside. A hodgepodge. Mantra mixed with curse, the Veda lost in the newspaper. We lug this sack and call it memory. This is not knowing—it’s rubbish—secondhand and stale. Knowledge is only what is born of your own experience. You have used intellect as a sack.

Nanak says, ‘Intellect is the anvil and knowledge the hammer.’

Knowing is a blow, a hammer. Whenever you truly know—even a little—every hair in your body will tremble from that blow. That is why we avoid knowing: it is a shock. We collect information because it carries no shock. You read in a scripture: God is the supreme Truth—what shock is there? You read: meditation is the way—what shock is there? Read it, memorize it, tell others.

A little girl was called by her mother from upstairs to come bathe. Grandma sunning herself in the courtyard said, “Let her play, bathe her later.” But the mother insisted. The child left her toys and climbed the stairs saying, “Grandma, you always tell me to obey my mother; and you are not obeying your mother at all!”

The knowledge you give others—have you ever listened to it yourself? The advice you offer—has it entered your life? No. You received it stale and you hand it off. Giving it away relieves you of the burden. It was a lullaby for you; it will be a lullaby for them.

Thus advice is what people give most and take least. Pseudo-knowledge is given away free—who takes it? People run from such “knowers”—they bore you and dump their sack on you. They carry a load of rubbish they themselves have never used.

Real knowing is a shock because it is born from the friction of living. It comes not from scriptures and words but from experience. Experience is a blow. So we avoid experience.

Gurdjieff used to say: people install “shock absorbers” in their lives. As railway cars have buffers between them to prevent hard impact; as cars have springs and shock absorbers—so does our “knowledge” work as a shock absorber. Real knowing is a shock.

Someone dies in your home and you say, “The soul is immortal.” This “knowledge” has never shocked your life; you are using it as a shock absorber. Those who declared the soul immortal did so after passing through great restraint, great austerity, great furnaces and fires. For them that knowledge fell like a hammer on the anvil of their being. It shattered them. It smashed their skull of ego, severed their bonds with the body, shook their world apart. That knowledge turned them into sannyasins, uprooted them from this world. It came like a storm.

And for you? A lullaby. When you cannot sleep, you hum this “knowledge” and drift off. Someone dies and you say, “The soul is immortal.” You place this between you and death as a shock absorber. Death still frightens you.

It could be that when someone in your house died you fully experienced the death—and then knowing would have arisen. The incident could have become the hammer and you the anvil. The blow would have woken you. No one wakes without a blow. But you have installed shock absorbers on every side—nothing can strike you; you are safe within. Someone dies, you say, “The soul is immortal.” A beggar asks on the street; you say, “Poor fellow—he is suffering the fruits of his karma.” You don’t want to give him two coins. Because if his suffering is not his karma, then you feel responsible—you are part of a society that made him poor. You share the responsibility. That hurts. So you build a shock absorber: “He is suffering his karma,” and you move on unmoved.

You are cunning without limits. The wise get knowledge through shocks; you use that shock as a cushion. Whatever happens, you manage to protect your ego—the very ego that must be broken.

‘Intellect is the anvil and knowledge the hammer.’

Upon whom does it fall? Only if you place yourself between this anvil and this hammer will knowing be born in you—only if you are shattered. But you do not allow shattering; you keep saving yourself in a hundred ways.

One morning I went to Mulla Nasruddin’s house. He was coughing. Doctors had told him a thousand times to stop smoking—he wouldn’t. I said, “You suffer so, why not stop?” He said, “Since you ask, I will tell you the truth. I want to stop, but I’m afraid.” “Afraid of what? You cough all night, can’t sleep!” He said, “The first time I quit, the Second World War broke out the same day.”

He believes that his quitting caused the war! So he dares not quit now—what if another war starts? For the ego we invent strange strategies. We assume the whole world revolves around us—we are the controllers. If we fall apart, everything will fall apart. If we die, all dies. If we are not, how will the world go on? Wars depend on our smoking or not smoking! If you watch, you will find such absurdities collected around you.

‘Intellect is the anvil and knowledge the hammer.’

Do not use intellect as a sack. Otherwise the sack grows and you shrink—and one day you will be buried under your own sack and die beneath it. Scholars die like this, crushed by their knowledge. Make the intellect an anvil. It shines only as the blows of life fall upon it; each blow polishes it.

Have you noticed? If not, go to the blacksmith or the goldsmith where there is an anvil—you will be amazed. The hammer strikes; hundreds of hammers break, the anvil remains. You will be surprised: the hammers, which strike, break; the anvil, which bears, endures and grows lustrous. Lao Tzu says the anvil does not break because it receives; the hammer breaks because it attacks. The aggressor breaks of his own accord—don’t worry about him. Just become capable of bearing. Every aggressive situation, every event that shakes you, will make you stronger. Ask a smith how many hammers for one anvil—he will say, “Hundreds of hammers broke; the anvil stands.” It should have been the other way, for so many attacks—but those who break, break; those who bear, endure. The anvil holds the secret.

Nanak says, ‘Intellect is the anvil.’

It will not break—do not fear. Open yourself to experience; let the blows fall. The more blows consciousness receives, the more you are polished. Make life an adventure.

Wherever a blow can fall, don’t run. The one who flees is defeated before the battle. He never accepts the challenge. Don’t be a deserter. Do not flee life’s friction.

That is why I do not call the one who runs away a sannyasin—he has fled the hammers. His anvil will rust in the Himalayas. Visit the Himalayas and see—these renunciates do not have the brilliance of intelligence; you will find rust upon them. If you have eyes, you will see their talent has withered; they are as if dead. The flame of life does not burn intensely in them; everything is faded, dull—because struggle is food for the flame. Do not flee it.

Nanak says, ‘Intellect is the anvil and knowledge the hammer.’

Whenever a blow lands in your life, a moment of knowing is born—do not miss it. In a dark night, when lightning flashes you tremble—and in that trembling there is a light; for a moment the path is clear. Each blow of knowing is a lightning-flash. Friction among clouds produces lightning; friction in life produces illumination. So do not flee any situation. Stay, pass through it—that is how maturity comes, that is how understanding is born.

Hence Nanak did not tell his disciples to flee the world—fleeing the hammers only. Here is where knowing is born. Flee your wife and you remain childish; in the friction with a wife a maturity grows. Flee your children and you remain childish; in enlarging life through children, a maturity develops.

Notice: when a woman gives birth, she is no longer what she was before. For not only does a child take birth; a mother is born. Before, she was an ordinary woman; now she is a mother—an entirely different quality, unknown to the ordinary woman. When a child is born, a young man becomes a father—another man, because fatherhood is a maturity, a new experience. Do not flee. Use all the doors that life opens.

Thus Nanak did not tell his devotees to escape into jungles. He said: remain in life; let the hammers fall; don’t be afraid. Because the intellect is the anvil and knowing is the hammer.

‘Fear is the bellows and austerity the fire.’

You can use fear in two ways. One you already use: wherever you feel fear, you flee. Like the ostrich: seeing the enemy, it buries its head in the sand; not seeing the enemy, it thinks the enemy is gone. You flee wherever fear appears. How will you grow then? Fear is an opportunity. What is fear? The single fear that you may be annihilated. Wherever fear arises, you withdraw. If you refuse to die, how will God happen? What is fear but the fear of death? If you are not willing to die, how will you dissolve into God? If you won’t die, how will you enter love? If you won’t die, how will you step into prayer?

So fear offers two possibilities: either flee, or surrender. Either run away, or submit. Agree: “Yes, death is.” Accept it; don’t hide. The day you look at death with open eyes, accepting it, you will find it vanishes. You never looked at it directly; you never confronted it. The fears of life slowly dissolve if you begin to look awake.

Nanak says, ‘Fear is the bellows.’

Do not be afraid of fear. The more you flee fear, the more the fire of your austerity dwindles, because fear is the bellows that fans the flame. Wherever fear is, accept the challenge and enter. That is how the warrior is born: where there is fear, he enters; where there is death, he takes it as an invitation. Where there is danger, he moves with awareness—but he moves, goes inward. The deeper you go into fear, the more fearlessness arises. The more you flee, the more fear accumulates.

Learn to use fear, and it becomes a bellows; every fearful situation kindles the fire of austerity. The devotee has fear—but he transforms it into devotion. Now he fears only God, no one else. And why fear God? Only so that through that fear he can keep restraint in his life; so that it prevents him from going astray.

This fear is not ordinary. Whatever you fear, you become its enemy. The fear of God is unique: the more you fear Him, the more you fall in love with Him—because fear here means: “May I not miss You. May I not go astray. I know I can wander—don’t let me. May I not forget Your remembrance. Without Your grace I cannot even remember You. I seek You, but without Your support I cannot seek. Fear means: my helplessness, my frailty.”

The devotee turns fear into prayer. He does not flee; he makes every fear an occasion for prayer.

‘Fear is the bellows, austerity the fire.’

Whenever you do even a small act with resolve, a strange inner heat is born. Perhaps you’ve never noticed. But do even a small deed with determined awareness—that is all austerity means.

Say you fast today—not to earn heaven, for if fasting led to heaven it would be easy; not to gain merit, for what has hunger to do with merit? Fasting is a process of resolve. You decide: “Today I will remain hungry.” The body will demand food by habit; when the hour comes, it will say, “I’m hungry.” You will hear it. You won’t deny it or say, “I’m not hungry.” Tell the body, “You are hungry—true. It is time—true. But I have decided to remain hungry today. So I will. I will not bend my decision for the body.” Say it with awareness. “The body’s demand is right. But today I will live by my decision.” What does this mean? You are rising above the body; you are becoming larger than it; you are making it follow. The mind will think of food—let it. Tell the mind, “Think if you must; I remain a witness. I am not your companion. I will live by my resolve.” Then you will find a heat, a fire, an energy arises—one you’ve never known. It comes from the sovereignty of resolve—you are your own master.

Tomorrow morning you will rise differently. You will feel: I can rise above the body, above the mind. A new glimpse—an encounter: I am other than body and mind. A small glimpse, but a glimpse.

This is austerity. Not for merit, not for salvation—but to know your consciousness as above body and mind. Yet for the one who ascends above them, the doors of liberation open effortlessly.

Nanak says, ‘Austerity is fire; fear is the bellows.’

He is saying: do not flee anything—learn to use it. Everything can be used. There is nothing in life that cannot be. Lust turns into celibacy, anger into compassion, fear into prayer, suffering into austerity. One needs craft, artistry. Otherwise, the palace that could be built becomes your prison. It all depends on you.

You already have everything; it needs the right arrangement. That arrangement is restraint. Everything is within you, but you have never gathered it, given it rhythm, order, music. Things are lying about; you don’t know what to do. A stone lies before your house; you think it is an obstacle. Another climbs upon it and goes ahead—it becomes a step. All is present. God makes humans complete, not incomplete. But the arrangement is left to your freedom.

If you study carefully those you call sinners and those you call saints, the good and the bad, you will find they contain the same elements—the difference lies in the arrangement.

A thief enters another’s house at night—it isn’t easy. He, too, has transformed fear. He goes in as if without fear. He makes a hole in the wall silently; he enters with such awareness that in the dark he does not knock anything over—utterly concentrated, deeply alert.

Zen masters say: to enter God’s house you must learn the thief’s art—for you need that much alertness, that same transformation of fear. He enters as if it were his own home.

There is a Zen tale. A master thief grew old. His son said, “Teach me your art—who knows when you’ll be gone.” He was such a master that he was never caught; even the emperor summoned him once and honored him: “You are astonishing. The whole world knows you’re a thief. We know it. You’ve never hidden it—yet you’re never caught. Your art is wonderful.”

The old father said, “If you want to learn, come with me tonight.” That night he took the boy. He cut a hole in a wall with the absorption of a painter making a painting, a sculptor chiseling a statue, a devotee worshiping in a temple—such totality. Nothing less would suffice. He was a master thief, not ordinary—guru to hundreds of thieves.

The boy shook with fear. It wasn’t cold, yet he shivered; panic gripped his spine; he looked around startled. The father never looked up; he was absorbed. The hole ready, he led the boy inside. The boy’s limbs trembled—he had never known such fright. The father moved as if at home. He took the boy to a great wardrobe, opened it, told him, “Get in.” The boy got in among the costly garments. The father locked the door, put the key in his pocket, walked to the wall and shouted, “Thief! Thief!” Then slipped out through the hole and went home.

The whole house woke; neighbors gathered. The boy beat his head inside: “What kind of teaching is this? I’m finished!” No way to escape; the key gone. Servants came near the cupboard. His intellect was useless—it works only with the known and the done. Intellect is always stale. This was utterly new—never done, heard, or recorded in any thief’s scripture. Suddenly an energy seized him—inner awareness awoke. He made a sound like a rat gnawing cloth—something he had never done. The maid came with keys, opened the door, and peered in with a lamp. He blew out the lamp and shoved past her, running. Ten or twenty men chased him. He ran as never before—so intensely he didn’t even know he was the one running, as if someone else was running him. Reaching a well, he heaved a rock into it. Without knowing how, as if guided, he did it. The crowd gathered at the well, thinking the thief had jumped in. He hid behind a bush, rested, then went home and banged on the door thinking, “Today I’ll set this father right. This is teaching?” The father was snoring under his blanket. The son tore off the blanket: “What are you doing?” The father grunted. The son told the whole tale. The father said, “Good—you have learned. This cannot be taught, but you are my son—my blood runs in you. You have the secret now. A thief who relies on intellect will be caught—the situation is new every time, the house is new, the people are new; the old never helps. There, intellect must be set aside and inner awareness must function.”

Zen masters tell this story to say: the art of meditation is like thieving—such alertness is needed. Let intellect step aside and awareness arise. Where there is danger, you awaken; where there is danger, thoughts stop by themselves.

So Nanak says, ‘Fear is the bellows.’

Use fear to awaken. Fear is wondrous. The body will tremble, hair will bristle—that is the moment to let your consciousness remain unmoved even as the body shakes. Then fear becomes the bellows.

‘Austerity is fire.’

Wherever there is suffering in life, take it as austerity; accept it deliberately. Fall ill—accept the illness; don’t fight. Then you will find, after the illness not only has the body recovered but consciousness has reached a new health. When illness comes, watch it and accept it; do not fight, do not panic. Do not distract your mind, otherwise you miss the opportunity of illness. Every situation in life can become a path to God—remember. Every event a step to his door—if you know how to use it.

‘Feeling is the vessel in which the nectar is poured.’

Nanak says: not by thought, but by feeling. Feeling means the consciousness beyond thought. Thought is in the head; feeling is in the heart. Feeling is not logic—it is love. You cannot do arithmetic with it. It is an upsurge, a rapture. When you are feelingful, you are joined to existence in depth.

Thought is your outermost edge; it is the fence around the house, not the house, not the inner chamber. We erected the fence to keep the neighbors out; it marks the boundary. You are not your fence; you are your feeling.

But we have grown afraid of feeling. We have blocked it, cut ourselves off from it. We never listen to the heart—only to the head and its logic. Where can the head lead? It is the shallowest part of you, so it leads to the shallow; hence your obsession with collecting money, with gathering junk, with status and prestige.

Nanak says, ‘Feeling is the vessel in which the nectar is poured.’

Step a little away from thought, enter a little into feeling. It is difficult—how to enter feeling? In old India, as the sun rose, people saluted him—Surya Namaskar. They bowed before the sun, received his grace, thanked him: “You have returned; one more day is given; light again; flowers will bloom, birds will sing; the story of life continues—our thanks.” With joined hands they drank the sun’s light; that feeling of gratefulness flooded the heart with thrill.

At the river they saluted before bathing; they connected through feeling. The body will be cleansed regardless—that water washes anyone—but something within is washed too because they are not merely bathing; the river is sacred, of God; an inner feeling becomes dense. Before eating they remembered God and offered the first morsel to him—first to him, then to themselves. Hindus called grain Brahman—because it gives life. They made every act a remembrance of God, so that his touch of feeling strikes them everywhere—rising, sitting, sleeping—his remembrance always.

We have denied it all. “What are you doing? Saluting the river? It is only H2O. What God? Saluting the sun? Only a ball of fire.” If so, where will you find God? Then what is a wife? Flesh and bones. A son? Meat and marrow. Where will you awaken feeling?

To awaken feeling is to recognize the world as sentient. What appears is not all; there is a within. Feeling means the world has a personality, a soul. Granted a child is flesh and bone; but not only—something has descended within him. God has come as a guest. A tree is a tree, and yet within someone grows; someone rejoices and suffers; moods and feelings come; awakeness and drowsiness pass.

Scientists have now discovered that trees feel as much as humans. Their sensitivity is deep. Stones too are sensitive. Sensation is everywhere. You have lost sensitivity, lost feeling—so the world appears dull, drab, meaningless. When your feeling awakens, the world is transformed; it remains the same—and yet everything changes because you have changed.

‘Feeling is the vessel in which the nectar is poured.’

Your feeling will be the vessel that receives the Divine nectar. Without feeling, you will be deprived of God. Awaken feeling.

There is one obstacle: feeling is opposite to intellect. In the world, intellect works; feeling does not. You cannot earn money with feeling—you will be robbed. To climb in politics, feeling won’t help; you need hardness, aggressive thought. Peace and silence don’t work there; better to forget the heart altogether.

There is a parable of the future: a time came when every organ of the body—heart, lungs, kidneys—was available as a spare part. This will happen. Your kidney fails; you go to the workshop, replace it, and go on—like a car. A man’s heart failed. He went to the heart shop. Many kinds of hearts there. He asked the price and differences. The shopkeeper said, “This is a laborer’s heart, this a farmer’s, this a mathematician’s; this a politician’s—the most expensive.” “Why?” “Unused—brand new. The politician’s heart has never been used—that is why it costs most. This is a poet’s heart—the cheapest; it’s heavily used, second-hand. What use has a politician for a heart? It’s dangerous there.”

Begin to use your heart—slowly. Only slowly is it possible. Just remember one thing: put the head aside a little; bring the heart a little forward. Sit by a tree, sit near a flower. Don’t think, “This is a rose.” Names don’t matter. Don’t think, “It’s a big rose.” Big and small don’t matter. There is an invisible beauty—drink it. Do not think about it. Sit silently by the flower, be with it. Soon you will find the activity of the heart has stilled the activity of the head—energy can flow in only one track at a time. As a thrill arises in the heart—and it can be known only by tasting it; no one can define it—it is sweetness to the mute; the heart has no language. Sit by a flower, listen to a bird’s song. Lean your back against a tree, close your eyes, feel its rough body. Lie on the sand, feel the cool touch of the grains. Sit beneath a waterfall, let the water flow over your head and let its tender touch flood you. Stand before the sun with closed eyes and let his rays touch you. Only experience—don’t think what is happening. Let whatever is happening happen; let the heart be thrilled. Soon a new activity begins in the heart—as if a new instrument, long unused, has come alive. A new melody begins. Your life’s center shifts. And upon that new center the nectar begins to shower.

‘In the mint of Truth the coin of the Word is cast.’

What Nanak calls the Word is Omkar—not your words. In the mint of Truth—only as truth grows in your life will Omkar be minted; only then will you merge into its sound. By lies you harm others—but the greater harm is to your own mint where the supreme experience is to be cast, where the music of Omkar is to arise.

‘Only those upon whom his glance of grace falls can do this.’

And Nanak never forgets to repeat after every stanza: remember, it does not happen because of you. Do not become swollen—“I am a great devotee; I am full of feeling; my heart is so moved; I am a great ascetic; I am restrained.” No—remember, only those upon whom his gracious glance falls can do this.

‘Nanak says, by that gracious glance they are overjoyed.’

‘The wind is the Guru, water the father, and the great earth the mother. Night and day are the nurse and servant—through them the whole world plays. Good and bad deeds are read out in his court by Dharma. Everyone’s own deeds determine who is near to Him and who is far. Nanak says, those who meditated on his Name and labored in truth have radiant faces—and many are freed along with them.’

Nanak’s symbols are precious, chosen with great feeling.

‘Pavan the Guru.’

He says, the Guru is like the wind—unseen, but can be felt. Those who try to see him miss; like wind, he is known by touch. You cannot imprison him in your fist. A Guru cannot be held. If a “guru” can be held in disciples’ fists, know he is not a guru. Ninety-nine out of a hundred “gurus” are run by their disciples. Disciples tell them what is proper and improper; councils of disciples decide which behavior is right and which wrong. These councils run the “holy men”—deciding who is worthy, who is not; who to worship, who to expel. Our world is upside down: we judge gurus—telling them how to stand, sit, walk—and those who agree are not gurus; that is why they agree. In monasteries and ashrams you will not find gurus—you will find counterfeit coins bearing the guru’s name. No fist can bind a Guru. You cannot run Mahavira, Buddha, Nanak; they move by their own will. The wind blows when it blows; when it doesn’t, it doesn’t. Close your fist and even the little wind within escapes. Those who come to free cannot be bound. How can you bind the one from whom you seek freedom?

So Nanak says, ‘The wind is the Guru, water the father, earth the mother.’

Without earth your body cannot be—hence the mother is essential; without her, no birth. But earth is gross—so motherhood exists among animals and birds too; fatherhood does not. Fatherhood requires culture, civilization. Mother is body; father is mind. Wherever there is body there is mother; father is not guaranteed. Where mind is born, fatherhood begins. Father is a new event—only among humans, and not so ancient. At most five thousand years. Before that there was no father, because woman was communal property, enjoyed by many; paternity could not be determined—like among animals. It may surprise you: “uncle” is an older word than “father.” In those days there were uncles but no fathers—any older man had paternal qualifications; they were all “uncles” because no one knew who the father was. Father came later, as society evolved—father is social, not natural. In nature there is no sign of fatherhood; only an advanced society engenders father.

Thus Nanak says: mother is like earth—gross, without her nothing can be. ‘Water the father’—more fluid, subtle. ‘Wind the Guru’—subtler still. Three steps: mother—earth, gross, material; hence woman is called nature. Next, father—society, culture. Higher still, Guru—religion, yoga, tantra.

If you stop at the mother, you remain animal-like. If you stop at the father, merely human. Until you reach the Guru, your soulfulness cannot flower. Three steps of life: all creatures reach the mother; all humans the father; very few reach the Guru. Until you do, your full height will not come—mother relates to body, father to mind, Guru to soul. That is the greatest relationship—none deeper or higher.

Thus those without a Guru are almost incomplete. With a Guru you become whole. The journey of this world completes, and the journey of the other begins. The Guru is the end of this world and the beginning of the next—the Door. That is why Nanak called his temple a Gurudwara—the Guru’s door. A door ends one world and begins another; on this side one world, on that side another. The Guru stands between.

‘Night and day are nurse and servant; with them the whole world plays.’

The whole world plays with time. There are two kinds of players: those who turn the servant into the master, and those who keep the servant a servant. Time is not your master; it is your slave. Use it—but don’t let it use you. The situation is reversed: time is using you.

People come and say, “We want to meditate—but there is no time.” No time to meditate? Is time your master or are you its master? If you are master, there is ample time to meditate. If you are a slave, there is none. Because you have time for cinema, for circus—time for everything else.

It’s amusing: the same man sits reading the morning paper—ask, “What are you doing?” “Killing time,” he says. He has too much time—he kills it; time won’t die, people say. And when meditation is mentioned, he says, “Where is the time?” The same man! For some time there is too much—you must cut it; television, clubs, and still it remains: “How to spend it?” is the question. On holidays people are in difficulty—what to do? They get exhausted doing nothing; Monday morning they are relieved—thank God Sunday is over. Or they stir up trouble on Sunday—drive a hundred miles, go to the beach, to the hills—the one day for rest is made into labor. There’s a saying in America: people get more tired on holidays than on work days.

Time is using you. If you are the master, there is plenty. If a slave—nothing. What can a slave have? Not even time.

Nanak says, ‘With night and day as attendants, the whole world plays.’

Two games: the masters use time—they carve a path to the Timeless; that is meditation. The others are used by time.

I heard: a beggar went to a grain seller. “I have no money,” he said, “you must give me grain on credit.” The shopkeeper felt pity. “All right, I will. But beware—I suspect you might sell it to watch the circus in town.” The man said, “Don’t worry. I saved the circus money in advance.” For the futile you have already saved time; for the essential, none. Become master of time—only then can you go beyond it.

‘Good and bad deeds are read out in his court by Dharma. Everyone’s own deeds decide who is near to Him and who far.’

God is equally near to all. From His side you are neither near nor far. From your side you are near or far—your actions determine it. If you act in ways that lull and numb you, you stand with your back to the sun—He is where He is; you are where you are. Turn your face to the sun—you are near; turn your back—you are far. God is always equally near. In His vision, Nanak says, none is high and none low, none worthy or unworthy. If you are unworthy, it is by your own doing. Change yourself a little and you become worthy—between you and the worthy there is only this difference: they face toward God; you face away.

Nanak says, ‘Those who meditated on the Name and labored in truth have radiant faces—and countless are freed along with them.’

Whenever someone is liberated, he is not liberated alone. Liberation is such a supreme event that even one person’s liberation is so great that all who come near are filled with its fragrance—their life journeys change. All who come near are filled with the music of Omkar; they too get a taste—and that taste changes their lives.

‘Those who remembered Him and labored in truth have radiant faces.’

A light burns within them—if you look with love, you can see it; if you recognize with reverence, you can recognize it at once. A lamp burns within, and its light falls all around. That is why we depict halos around the faces of saints and avatars. Not everyone can see it; only those in whom the first ray of feeling has descended, those who have the recognition of reverence.

Those who see it light their extinguished lamp from that burning lamp. When one is freed, thousands are freed in his shade. Liberation never happens in isolation—it cannot. When such a supreme event happens, that person becomes a door for many.

Keep your reverence and feeling awake so you can recognize the Guru. The one who recognizes the Guru recognizes the hand of the Beyond in this world; recognizes, within the world, that which is beyond. He finds the Door.

And when the Door is found, all is found. Nothing was ever truly lost. Passing through the Door, you recognize yourself; the light that has always been yours comes into awareness; the treasure you always possessed is discovered; what you have always been—never lost—the Guru helps you recognize.

Kabir said: Guru and Govind both stand here—whose feet should I touch? Whose feet first? Kabir is in a sweet dilemma. If he touches God first, the Guru is dishonored; if he touches the Guru first, God is dishonored. Whose feet? Then he touches the Guru’s, because he says, “Blessed is the Guru who showed me Govind.” In the dilemma, the Guru gestures, “Touch Govind’s feet—my work ends here.” So sweet—when Kabir hesitates, the Guru points: “Touch God’s feet; I end here. Now He stands before you.” Still Kabir touches the Guru’s feet—“Because I am in your debt: you showed me Govind.”

Have reverence and feeling—and you will recognize. Only reverence and feeling are needed. No one has ever reached by thought, and no one ever will. Do not attempt the impossible. It has never happened; you cannot be the exception.

And the Guru is always present. It never happens that in this infinite world there are none who have found Him. Some always find Him. Hence the earth is never without a Guru. Such misfortune never comes. But sometimes a worse misfortune comes: there are none to recognize.

That is all.