Ladder Of Religion (step 3)

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Ladder of Religion (Step 3)

3. Faith in the Guru Mantar

The Guru gives a Guru Mantar. Some don’t have 100% faith in it and indulge in argumentation and discussion, holding, that the other Guru’s Mantar is the best, or the Guru Mantar given in some other sect bears fruit more quickly. Such notions are useless. This makes one’s faith shaky and does not allow complete faith to develop. So long, as one has not complete faith in one’s Mantar, till then one cannot achieve one’s desired objective.

In this context, some great men give this example. A simpleton sort of seeker went to a saint and respectfully requested him to give him the gift of Guru-Mantar, so that by its jaap, he could achieve his objective and may be liberated from the circle of lives and deaths. The saint addressed him as a lover and told him that there are generally 3 big defects in one’s consciousness that do no entitle any person to be worthy of devotion to God. This first is that the dirt of evil acts done through many lives dirties the inner consciousness. And as long as the dirt is not removed, God’s Name cannot find a lasting place in one’s heart. To remove this grave defect, the way is to recite and hear Gurbani with understanding and pondering over it. Hearing and contemplation of Gurbani are very necessary. Along with one should do service to the sangats (holy gatherings) and perform noble acts without expecting any rewards. By performing desire less actions, the inner consciousness becomes clean and pure. The second fault of the inner consciousness becomes clean and pure. The second fault of the inner consciousness is the allurement of worldly pleasures. The person is caught in the very strong and complex meshes of physical desires and having lost his way in the labyrinth of Maya (illusion) has forgotten his divine origin and feels very miserable.

As says in Gurbani –

O bird, the trees are lovely and you fly in all the four directions. But more you fly, greater is your misery; it troubles you and makes you weep and wail. (SGGS P. 66)

Also –

Maya has spread out its net, by throwing grains inside the net. Attracted by this feed, the avaricious bird of worldly pleasures is caught in the net, it can’t come out and escape. (SGGS P.56)

The person caught in the waves of physical desires feels very miserable and bemoans. The mind can’t be fixed in the house of concentration; this defect is called attractions for pleasures of the flesh. This defect can be removed when the mind attains concentration for gaining which, one has to resort to the worship of Waheguru. The external worship consists of such acts as worshipping your favourite deity as the visible form of the Almight. You bathe it, offer it food Pershaad and such like acts of worship. These are limbs of outward worship. The second worship is Internal Worship, this consists in concentrating your consciousness by contracting your tendencies, also contemplating the form of the Guru and to perform holy singing in his presence. When inner consciousness is purified, and the evil of deep desires for worldly pleasures is gone, then the stage when the covering of falsehood is removed, but this can’t be done without the knowledge imparted by the Guru. To undertake this method, first it is necessary to do service and upkeep of the holy sangat and preparing langar. You spend time rendering such services.

One day that simpleton of seek came to his Guru to receive Guru Mantar. At that time, a king was coming to pay a visit for that Mahatma and the Raja’s functionaries had spread very costly rugs on the ground. The Mahatma shouted to this seeker from a distance- Parei, Parei meaning Away, away, away, away. That simple minded seeker understood this (Away, Away) in the Guru Mantar which his Guru was giving him. He started non-stop jaap of this mantar (Parei-Parei). As result, after some time by the worship of this Gur Mantar the evils of his mind disappeared, His mind got concentration and started dwelling in the taste of the Almighty. At all times, he went on practising his Guru Mantar (away, away). All blessings and successes came there waiting upon him.

One day, the Mahatma had to send this seeker to another Mahatma to get answers to some questions. The seeker was given the order to go to the other Mahatma. At the prospect of a journey, the seeker was bewildered. So God Who is present in every atom, appear and Himself did the work assigned to this person, Just in a few minutes did the work assigned to this person. Just in a few minutes, he placed the other Mahatma’s reply before his Guru. (He had not gone, God had run the errand for him, in no time) Reading the other Mahatma’s reply, this man’s Guru feeling strangeness recalled, ‘I have not yet given him even the Guru Mantar. How has he achieved such complete success in his search that Lord God Himself has run the errand for him?

So the Mahatma went into Samadhi (contemplation) and invoked God in His Realm. Sensing this curiosity in the Mahatma’s heart, God thus ordained, “This person is my supreme devotee. At all times he has been remembering me by my Name, Away, Away. On hearing this our Mahatma was wonderstruck and enquired. O God is ‘Away, Away’ also one of your Names? God replied, the world calls me Beyond, the Beyond. Hence I am beyond the Visible and Invisible both. So this lover has done jaap of my Name, Away, Away.

So great souls try to establish their follower’s firm faith in Guru Mantar, by narrating such stories. So long as the seeker has not complete faith in his Gur Mantar, the mind remains shaky and the Mantar does not bear the desired fruit. Hence once must have total faith in the Mantar, to achieve success.