2 What is Guru Mat or the Way of the Masters?
Two paths are open to us in this world. Either we follow the path of the mind or that of the Guru, known as Guru Mat or Guru Marg. Everyone, according to his own light, claims to follow Guru Mat.
The Sikhs base this claim on the strength of the five symbols, referred to as the five ‘Ks’, which they wear: kanga (comb), kara (steel bracelet), kachh (short knickers), kesh (long hair) and kirpan (sword). The five ‘Ks’ are considered essential prerequisites and without them none can claim to be a follower of their Guru.
The Muslims regard namaz, roza, haj and zakat (prayer five times daily; fasting from sunrise to sundown for thirty days during the month of Ramzan; pilgrimage to Mecca; and giving a portion of their income to charity) as Guru Mat.
In the same manner, the Hindus regard shikha (tuft of hair at the top of the head), sutra (sacred thread), sandhya (prayer both morning and evening), havan (religious fire invoking gods) and khat karmas (six duties according to Hindu scriptures) as Guru’s way.
Some look upon idol worship, pilgrimages and baths in holy waters as Guru Mat. Others take to reading the Gita, repetition of gayatri, recitation of Ramayana or other sacred scriptures. And still others think that fasting and other austerities lead to God-realization. Yogis treat pranayam (breath control) as well as dhoti, neti and vasti karmas as the path of God-realization. Christians, however, believe in Christ as the all-time redeemer, with Baptism and the various sacraments, rites and rituals as Guru Mat. In short, people do one thing or the other, and all claim to follow the path of the Masters.
Let us now consider what is true Guru Mat? One makes progress according to the capacity and knowledge of one’s guru. But we find numerous gurus at every step. In fact, there are more so-called gurus in this world than there are disciples. Kabir says: “One’s future depends upon one’s guru, and a perfect Guru one gets only by rare good fortune.”1 Since this world is full of gurus of all sorts, how, then, can we find a true one? All the saints and scriptures lay great stress upon finding a true, perfect and real Guru. In the Granth Sahib as well as in the writings of Kabir, Paltu, Dadu and other saints, the need of a true Master is greatly stressed. Muslim saints, such as Maulana Rum, Shams-i Tabriz, Hafiz and others sing praises of Murshid-i Kamil, the Persian name for a perfect Master. Otherwise, there is the danger of the blind leading the blind and reaching nowhere. Consequently, the first requirement is to find a true and perfect Master. The perfect Masters always say: “The kingdom of heaven is within you.” Lord God, the supreme Creator, cannot be found outside by one who has not realized Him within. This human body of ours is the ‘mansion of the Lord’, the “temple of the living God”. Those who seek Him outside wander in illusion.
In the body too, the Lord is not realized in the khat chakras (six lower centres) as believed by the yogis. He is to be realized above the eye centre, and the way to realize Him is given by a true Master.
So long as the soul does not get out of the clutches of the mind and senses and cross the regions of Brahm and Par Brahm, Guru Mat is not really understood. The Guru initiates us into the mysteries of the path and tells us how to vacate the body and enter the tenth gate that leads to the Lord’s mansion.
Guru Mat is unique and sweet. It begins when the mind and the soul currents withdraw from the nine portals according to the instructions of a Guru, and become concentrated at the bhru madhe, the point between the two eyebrows. This is the door to the ‘kingdom of heaven within’, about which Jesus Christ says: “Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” The Guru tells us that the way to knock at this gate is to totally withdraw the attention from the nine outlets of the body and focus it at the eye centre. By permitting the attention to function below the eye centre, we allow the mind and soul to run out and squander precious energy.
When, by means of spiritual practice, soul and mind have reached the ashtdal kamal (eight-petalled lotus), one begins to hear the heavenly music, called the Anahat Shabd (the Word or Logos of the Bible), which constantly resounds there. Thus the soul is attracted by the Voice of God, and its inward and upward flight begins. A new world of bliss is realized and vistas of the macrocosm open before it. By the grace of the Master, it tastes the amrit, the life-giving nectar.
The soul that was previously burning up in the fires of desire and worldly hopes then begins to realize its true nature and to relish the ambrosial elixir of Nam, which bestows upon it true peace and bliss. The mind also, having for ages past wandered from birth to birth in the whirligig of chaurasi (whirlpool of transmigration), becomes motionless. Then it begins to realize its own reality, its high descent from Brahm. Thereafter it gives up the transitory pleasures of the senses and experiences the everlasting bliss of celestial music, the superior sweetness which alone can detach it from the lure of the world.
Formerly, it was as though the owner of the house (our body) was asleep and the house was at the mercy of five thieves, viz., lust, anger, greed, attachment and ego or pride (ahankar). Now that the owner has woken up, the thieves have run away. Huzur Baba Sawan Singh Maharaj Ji used to say “when a soul wakes up, the five thieves go out and inform the owner of the house that the place is now too hot for them to survive there and they have to leave.” Kabir also said to annihilate the five perversions and be attached to Nam. So long as the five enemies have control of the house, the soul is a helpless prisoner. They leave it only when the owner means business and will tolerate their presence no longer. The elixir of Shabd, which is the life-giving nectar for the soul, acts as a poison for these thieves. They run away and the corresponding virtues take their place. Thus lust goes and its place is taken up by continence, anger is replaced by forgiveness, for avarice comes contentment, and egotism and pride are replaced by discrimination and humility. The mind, which hankered after trifles and whose desire to possess knew no bounds, becomes still and contented. The soul, becoming free from all entanglements, makes for its real home. Holding onto the melody of Nam, by the grace of the Master, it completes the journey of months in a matter of days. The sense world now appears as an alien country, and the regions inside as its native land.
As the soul hears the sound of the bell and the conch, it begins to shed its impurities, and the lotus that lies inverted turns right side up. The soul then travels up rapidly, and flashes of the distant jyoti begin to come into view. The gate to Sahansdal Kamal opens, whence the light and radiance from the thousand petals shine forth. This is the first stage on the path of Guru Mat, although it is understood to be the highest and final stage by some. It is the seat of Niranjan, the lord of the astral world. The yogis too go no further.
After the thousand-petalled lotus (sahansrar) comes the land of Brahm, lord of the second inner region. He is the creator, the sustainer and the destroyer of the universe. Connecting the two regions is an oblique passage called the Bunk Nal (curved tunnel). Only after crossing this tunnel does the soul reach Trikuti, the realm of Brahm. Here the attributes of the mind drop off and thereafter the soul ascends alone. Trikuti is the source of the mind. Once the mind reaches its home, it merges in it, thereby setting the soul free.
The soul, however, has to sojourn in Trikuti for a fairly long duration of time. The store of sinchit karmas (the reserve store of karmas) is located here, and the soul has to stay here until this store of karmas is liquidated. Just as grain is separated from chaff, gravel and dust in a thresher, so is the soul purged of all its dross while staying in this region.
Trikuti has three prominences, the highest being called the Guru Pad. It is a sublime stage, beyond description. As the python draws its prey towards itself, so does the melody draw the soul towards it.
Next comes Daswan Dwar, the region of Par Brahm. Here the music is that of kingri, a stringed instrument similar to a guitar, which the yogis generally keep with them and on which they play both morning and evening. Guru Amar Das refers to this kingri when addressing the yogis: “O yogis, this kingri of yours does not help in meditation. Play that kingri which gives forth the Unstruck Music and draws the soul to the Supreme Being.”2
Now the soul has transcended the region of potent illusion. The tight knot which fastened it to the mind has been cut asunder. All its chains have been broken. The three coverings of physical, astral and causal bodies have been removed. The soul now shines forth in the lustre of its full glory. Here it is that it ‘knows itself’. The true realization that it is not the body or the mind, but a spark from the great ocean of light, immortal and eternal, comes to it on reaching this stage.
Shorn of all its fetters, the soul now proceeds upwards and reaches the fourth stage called Bhanwar Gupha (whirling cave). This is the gate to Sach Khand. But on the way between the third and the fourth stages lies the Maha Sunn (great void), the land of primordial gloom. This is a region of utter darkness. Even though the soul has a refulgence of twelve suns, yet it is unable to penetrate this darkness by itself. And it is here that the soul realizes the greatness of the Guru, for by itself it is incapable of crossing this region of unfathomable gloom. Only a Sant Satguru, a Master having access to the highest regions, can take it through that darkness. It crosses this region with the Guru’s radiance. The word ‘guru’ in Sanskrit means “one who brings light to the darkness”. Many souls that did not have the good fortune of having a perfect Master remain lost in this darkness.
After crossing this region, and on reaching the cave, the soul sees that in essence it is the same as the Creator, the only difference being that it is a drop and He is the ocean. This realization of its identity with the Lord of all creation brings forth an involuntary cry of: “I am He!” (The great Mansur was stoned to death by the mullahs for this cry of “Ana-ul-Haq!” – “I am He!” What does poor intellect know of the greatness of God-realization?)
From here the soul ascends to Sach Khand or Sat Lok, the true, the immortal, the eternal region, the home of bliss and perfect peace, where there is no pain or sorrow. This is the Satguru Pad, the abode of the true Master. Guru Arjun Dev pays him homage in the following terms at the commencement of Sukhmani:
I bow to the Master, who was in the beginning;
I bow to the Master, who was when time began;
I bow to the Satguru, the true and everlasting;
I bow to the Gurdev, my Master in human form.3
There are no words with which the greatness, the sublimity, the light or the extent of the Satguru Pad can be described. Millions of suns pale into insignificance before the effulgence of even one atom of this region. Guru Arjun says: “By contacting the Shabd, we reach the place where the light of ten million suns shines and the gloom of delusion is dispelled.”4
The music in Sat Lok is that of the veena, a very fine, stringed instrument. Guru Nanak says: “He who is attached to the melody of veena knows the secret of the three worlds.”5 Namdev also says: “I will play on the anhad veena. Then I will become Bairagi Ram – the Lord without any blemish and attachment.”6 Soami Ji says: “Wonderful is Guru Mat, where mind and soul contact the Sound amid beautiful scenes inside.”7
From here Sat Purush takes the soul to Radha Soami Pad, after crossing the Alakh and Agam Lokas. This is the final stage. Every saint has referred to it as the ‘Soami Pad’. Guru Arjun Dev says: “My exalted, boundless, infinite Soami! Who can sing Thy praises (or know Thy worth)?”8 Guru Nanak says: “I bow to the Soami, the beginning and the creator of all.”9 Soami Ji added the word ‘Radha’ (soul) to it, and addressed Him as ‘Radha Soami’, the Lord of the soul.
Now you can judge for yourself how far and wide do people stray away from reality. The yogis and gyanis have no knowledge of this. The yogis, even after many years of hard labour in the khat chakras, could with great difficulty succeed in attaining the sahansrar chakra, the thousand-petalled lotus. Yogishwars could only reach up to the top of the second region, Brahm Lok. As for the gyanis, the philosophers and the learned, most of them remained lost in hairsplitting. After facing failures, a few of them who sought the help of a spiritual guide could go up to Brahm. This again brings home the necessity of a perfect Master because, no matter how hard one works, one cannot go beyond that stage to which one’s guru has access.
To recapitulate:
- The first need in Guru Mat is a perfect Guru.
- From him we learn the way to enter the tenth door of our body, the temple of God.
- We should make our entry through that gate which may take us direct to the throne of the Lord by the safest, shortest, easiest and most convenient way.
- People who have not found a proper guide have entered the wrong gate and wasted their lives in the labyrinth of the lower chakras.
- Even the conquest of these chakras does not take us to the highest Lord. Our births and deaths do not come to an end, and we find ourselves still in the maze of chaurasi (the wheel of eighty-four).
- We should make our ideal that region which is permanent and eternal, whence we do not have to return to be born in this world. In Pralaya (dissolution) all the regions below Brahm are destroyed. In Maha Pralaya (grand dissolution) everything up to the gate of Sat Lok, i.e. all the regions below Sach Khand, come to an end. We should make Sat Lok our ideal, on reaching which we need never come down again.
- Only the practice of Shabd, the true Nam, the Word, can take us to that eternal region.
- All the pleasures of the world, the attachment to body and senses, the I-ness and duality have to be discarded before the soul can become fit to partake of the sweetness of Nam. Only attachment to Shabd will detach us from the world and its objects.