Except the Lord

Many years ago, the school I attended had its own school song which we used to sing on special occasions and at religious services. This song was based on a psalm in the Bible which contains the following lines:

Except the Lord build the house, he labours in vain who builds it.
Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman wakes in vain.

The city that is referred to was probably a walled city and it would have had gates that were shut and locked at night, but even so, because there was always a danger of attack from unfriendly neighbours, a watchman would have been appointed to warn everyone in case of need.

The house and the city stand for anything that we do in life, all our undertakings, which succeed or fail according to the will of the Lord. If we take the example of building a house: we may go into every little detail of the architect’s credentials; we may appoint the very best builder and choose the finest materials, seemingly leaving nothing to chance. But if it’s not part of the Lord’s plan that the house be built, it will not be built. On the other hand, when it is part of the Lord’s plan, nothing can effectively stand in its way. It’s quite hard for us to understand this. The schemes we have – we think that we are originating them, we are doing them. We feel that if they succeed, it’s because we have been clever; if they fail, we must have done something wrong. Either way, we take everything on our own shoulders, whereas the mystics tell us that not a leaf stirs without God’s command.

In The Master Answers, Maharaj Charan Singh says: “We are all just like puppets who are dancing and the strings are being pulled by him according to our karmas. The only difference is that the realized souls know that he is pulling the strings and the unrealized souls think that they are dancing by their own effort.”

One particular verse of the song has remained in my mind. I often remember it, partly because it gives the example of a watchman and that may remind us of RSSB properties where sevadars watch all night to keep the premises safe:

From those to whom God giveth much,
The more requireth he.
And if our outward path is smooth,
More faithful should we be.
For men, not walls, a city makes,
The men of heart and brain
– Except the Lord the city keeps,
The watchman wakes in vain.

Of course although it gives the example of watchmen, it’s not just about them, it’s about all of us. What does God give us? Well, just about everything – our consciousness, our human life, all the facilities we get, all the support we have. As satsangis, we are given the priceless opportunity to meet a true Master, have his company, receive initiation and the opportunity to meditate and do seva. All these are his gifts.

So what does he require of us? Baba Ji once discussed this very point in a Q&A session: what can we give to the Lord who gives us so much? The Master said that you always try to give someone something they haven’t got. So if someone doesn’t have a garden, you might take them nice flowers from your garden, or if they don’t have much time for cooking you might take them a cake. But since the Lord has everything and has created everything and given us all we have, what can we possibly give him?

It is our exaggerated sense of self, that we identify with, that we should give up to the Lord. Our ego is the creation of mind. So ego is what we should give to the Lord. Now the ego may not sound like a very good gift – but we are told that he won’t refuse it. Actually, that’s what he wants most of all from us – for us to abandon our sense of I-ness and just merge our will with his will. We can do that by remembering him. Kabir Sahib, quoted in Philosophy of the Masters, Vol. I, says:

One should remember one’s simran
in the same way as a passionate lover remembers his love
at all times of the day and night,
and forgets her not even for a single moment.

We show our gratitude by remembering him, and remembering him will bring us in line with his will, whatever it may be.

As satsangis, remembrance takes a practical form. We’re asked, when we’re initiated, to start meditating and to build that meditation practice up to two and a half hours a day. It’s probably not something that we can do all at once. So we start with what we can do, perhaps half an hour morning and evening and, remaining faithful day after day, slowly build from there.

In addition, after initiation, the Master suggests that we try to keep our mind under control during our daytime activities also. And we use simran, or the repetition of the five holy names, for this as well. We can do simran when we’re carrying out any activities that don’t actually require the full attention of our mind – things like preparing food, cleaning the car, waiting in a queue, or travelling to work. The advantages of this are many. Firstly, we find it much easier to concentrate at the time of meditation because our attention is already hovering at the eye centre; it’s not scattered out. Secondly, we haven’t lost energy in what Baba Ji calls “reacting” to things that have happened during the day, so we have more energy to wake up early to meditate. Thirdly, we lead a happier life because instead of worrying about things in the future or regretting things in the past, we are living in the here and now, just repeating those names.

The song suggests that “if our outward path is smooth, more faithful should we be.” We all go through a mixture of good and bad while here in this life. In outward terms, the good could include having good health, enough money for our needs and no overwhelming family worries, and the bad might be physical suffering, sorrows, responsibilities, and a difficult, demanding job.

If things are smooth for us, that is not the time to be lazy. We should give full attention to the path because, for example, it’s much easier to sit in meditation with a healthy body than with a body in pain or with a mind distracted by worldly cares. However, we should actually meditate at all times because in pain and sorrow, it is our only help.

Kabir Sahib, in his verses, urges us to do simran in happy times and then the unhappy times will never come. He doesn’t mean that bad karmas won’t arise – they will. But if we have become accustomed to doing simran in the happy times, then our attention will be so caught up in that bliss that it will carry us through the unhappy times – the bad times will have no effect on us.

When our meditation, our remembrance, begins to work, then in the words of Maharaj Charan Singh, “all the good qualities of a human being come in us just like cream on milk”. We don’t have to struggle for those qualities, they just emerge.

The song points out that in a community of people it’s not the buildings and the walls of the city that are important. Of course they are important in their way; having good buildings, good facilities, enables people to congregate in comfort. But the essential thing that makes a community is the people:

For men, not walls, a city makes,
The men of heart and brain.

In the same way, in the sangat, it’s our human and spiritual values that count. It’s how we interact with one another, how we use our brains to accomplish tasks, solve problems, carry out instructions, give advice and at the same time manage to listen, deal with difficult situations, even accept failure sometimes, by using our hearts.

We can be these people of “heart and brain” – a mature sangat, a loving sangat, only if we are faithful to the Lord and Master and remember that he is the one who really keeps our city, his sangat. Nothing we could do would be of any use if he was not directing it:

– Except the Lord the city keeps,
The watchman wakes in vain.