Every copy of Guru Granth Sahib consists of 1430 Aangs (pages). It contains the Banis (the sacred compositions. Its bani bcoz..it has com from gurus mukh---gurbani) of the first five Gurus and the ninth Guru as well as a number of passages of verses written by several saints from Muslims, Hindus and even so called "untouchable". This was done to demonstrate the Sikh respect for other saints, tolerance for all faiths and consider all humans equal. Not to forget, Guru Granth has many Doha's of my favorite saint Kabir and I think Meera too.
Guru Granth begins with these opening lines, that form the basis of Sikhism
ik onkar satnam karata purakh nirabhau nirvair akal murat ajuni saibhang gur parsad
Simple meaning of this verse is
ik onkar -One universal God.
satnam - The Name Is Truth.
karata purakh - creative being (personified). Being Immanent in his creation or u can say he is omnipresent. Creator is not different from Creation ! makes sense ? not yet you... can read this more on Osho's discourse later..
nirbhau- One without any fear
nirvair- One Without any hatred
akal murat- One Beyond Time and Space. (time as we know existed when universe begun 4.6 billion years. what was there before that? is GOD)
ajuni - One that cannot be born and so cannot die.
saibhang- Self-Existent. (In sanskrit - Swayambhu)
gur parsad - By Guru's Grace.
The teacher who is gods conciousness. Let me try an example...Imagine a water poured on floor. It doesn't know where to go..If you draw a line from it, then water starts flowing through that line..Guru's role is to draw that line. Guru's role is to make water aware of its property, that is, to flow...Only Guru can do it. Guru makes you realize your potential, your true nature, who you actually are, who you can become. So it is called Grace.. Believe me, I was too adamant once to believe this until recently when contemplation made me realize.
You can also relate this to Guru's role in our professional life too..
God created everything at the same time he manifests, reverberates, resonates, vibrates in his creation. He is the One-in-all and the All-in-one. He is the Eternal Reality
(its like a continous 'naad'........we can feeling it. Dont you feel a continous rhythm in everything around us and within us? for ex. day-night cycle, music, dance, eating, walking, running, nature around us...deeper in ourself heart beat, pulse, breathing, and still deeper in more scientific process like signal trasduction, opening and closing of ion channels, peristalsis. Even deeper - electromagnetic waves, sound waves, photons - travel in rhythm- what we call frequency, Molecules, atoms, electrons are in rhythm...electrons rotating around themselves is in rhythm and we measure it in the form of NMR !) Isn't it fascinating !
For many centuries physicists believed that universe is made of matter. Recently in a museum I came to know that only 4% of universe is matter rest 96% is mixture of dark matter and dark energy..both unknown to us. Whatever 4% matter we believed is also not matter but energy that resonates at a frequency that we can 'feel' !..We ourselves are energy too....Now physicists believe that there is "No Matter"...everything is made of Energy....every where there is only one energy but that it vibrates at different frequencies ! Experiments have proved this...Fission/fusion creates new elements becoz structure of neutrons and electrons from one element start vibrating at different frequency!
Some more stuff.....
These are some of the excerpts from Osho's understanding of sikkhism. Osho gave a discourse on Sikhism in 1984 and was considered as best rendition of sikhism....
Ek Omkar Satnam - The Essence of Sikh Religion
The first words uttered by Nanak after samadhi were: "Ek Omkar Satnam." Now the fact is that the entire Sikh religion is contained in those three words. Everything else is merely an effort to teach you, to help you understand.
Nanak's message was complete in these three words. Because it was not possible for ordinary people to understand the message directly, an effort had to be made to expand on it. Explanations are given out of your inability to understand; otherwise Nanak had said all he wanted to convey: "Ek Omkar Satnam." The mantra was complete. But for you it has no meaning yet. These three words alone cannot solve the mystery for you; then language must be used.
God is the creator. But realize that he does not stand apart from his creation. He is absorbed and one with all that he has created. This is why Nanak never separated the sannyasin from the householder. If the creator was separate from his creation, then you would drop all worldly activities in order to seek Him, abandoning the shop, the office, the marketplace. Nanak did not give up his worldly duties till the very end. As soon as he returned from his travels he would go to work in the fields. All his life he ploughed the fields. He named the village in which he settled, Kartarpur, which means the village of the creator.
God is the creator, but do not think he is separated form his creation. When man sculpts an idol and the idol is completed, the sculptor and the sculpture are no longer one; they are separate. And the sculpture will remain long after the sculptor is dead. If the image fractures, the sculptor is not also broken, because the two are separate. But there is no such distance between God and his creation.
What kind of relationship exists between God and his creation? It is like a dancer with his dance. When man dances can you separate him from his dance? Can he return home leaving the dance behind? If the dancer dies, the dance dies with him. When the dance stops, he is no longer the dancer. They are united. This is why since ancient times, Hindus have looked upon God as the dancer, "Nataraj." In this symbol the dancer and the dance are one.
The creator is nothing but creativity >>
The poet is no longer related to his poem, once it is finished. The sculptor is separated from his sculpture as soon as it is completed. A mother gives birth to a child, and they are separate; the father is always distinct from the child. But God is not distinct from His creation; He is contained in it. It would be more accurate to say: the creator is the creation, or the creator is nothing but creativity.
Discarding all idea of separateness Nanak says there is no need to renounce or run away from the world. Wherever you are, He is. Nanak has given birth to a unique religion in which householder and sannyasin are one. He alone is entitled to call himself a Sikh who, being a householder is yet a sannyasin; who, being a sannyasin is still a householder.
You cannot become a Sikh merely by growing your hair or wearing a turban. It is difficult to be a Sikh. It is easy to be a householder or to be a sannyasin, but to be a Sikh you have to be both. You have to remain in the house -- but as if you are not there, as if you are in the Himalayas. Keep running the shop, but maintain the remembrance of His name ever throbbing within; you can count your cash but take His name along with it.
Before attaining samadhi, Nanak had many small glimpses of God -- what we call satori. The first occurred when Nanak was working in a grain shop where his job was to weigh wheat and other grains for the customers. One day as he measured, "One, two, three..." he reached the number thirteen. Now the number thirteen is tera in the Punjabi language. "Tera" also means "yours." When Nanak reached thirteen, tera, he lost all consciousness of the outside world because he was reminded of his beloved lord.
He would fill a measure and repeat "tera, thine, thou." Again and again he filled it..."tera" -- as if all numbers ended at tera. Tera became his mantra. The destination was reached; everything ended at tera for Nanak. People thought him mad and tried to stop him, but Nanak was in a different world altogether: "Tera! Tera! Tera!" He could not move past tera. There was nothing beyond it.
You start with I and finish at you>>
There are really only two halting places; one is I and the other is you. You start with I and finish at you.
Nanak is not against the mundane world. In fact he is in love with it, because to him the world and its creator are one. Love the world and through the world, love God; see Him through His own creation.
When Nanak came of age, his parents told him to get married. Nanak did not refuse, though people feared he would because his ways were so different from others since his childhood. His father was very much troubled on his account. He could never understand Nanak -- all these devotional songs and always in the company of holy men.
Once he sent him on a business trip to the adjoining village with twenty rupees to buy some goods for resale at a profit. Since the way of business is to buy cheaply and sell at a higher price, his father told him to buy something which would be profitable. Nanak made a few purchases. On the way back he came across a band of holy men who had not eaten for five days. Nanak pleaded with them to come to his village instead of sitting there expecting food to come to them.
"But that is the vow we have taken," they replied. "God will provide when He pleases. We are happy to abide by His will. Hunger is no problem to us."
Now Nanak thought to himself, "What can be more profitable and worthwhile than feeding these great holy men? I should distribute among them my food I have bought. Didn't my father say to do something profitable and worthwhile?"
So he gave away to the sadhus whatever he had brought from the village, though his companion, Bala, tried to stop him, and said, "Are you mad that you do that?"
Nanak insisted: "I am doing something worthwhile, as my father wished," and returned home very pleased with himself.
His ways were strange and his father was very angry. "What a fool you are. Is this how you make a profit? You will ruin me!"
Nanak answered, "What could be more profitable than this?"
Nanak’s marriage >>
But nobody else could see the profit either, much less Kale Mehta, Nanak's father. He could not see any good in this act. He was certain the boy had gone astray in the company of these holy men and lost his senses. He hoped marriage would make him more reasonable. People generally think that since the sannyasin renounces women and runs away, the way to keep a man in the world is to tie him to a woman. This trick did not work on him because Nanak was not against anything.
When his father told him to get married Nanak readily agreed. He married and had children, but this did not change his ways at all. There was no way to spoil this man, because he saw no difference between God and the world. How can such a person be defiled? If a man leaves wealth behind to become a sannyasin, you can tempt him just by giving him riches. If another has left a wife behind, give him a woman and in no time he falls. But how can you spoil a man who has left nothing? There is no way to bring about his downfall. Nanak cannot be corrupted.
My view of the sannyasin is similar to Nanak's, because he is a formidable sannyasin who cannot be corrupted. He who sits right in your world and yet is not of it can in no way be tempted.
This God Nanak refers to as the creator, the fearless, because fear is when the other is. An expression of Jean Paul Sartre has become famous: "The other is hell." It describes your experience. How often do you want to escape from the other, as if he is the source of all your trouble? When the other is closer to you, the turbulence is less than when the other is more remote, stranger. But the other is always troublesome.
What is fear? Fear always involves the other: if someone can take something away from you it destroys your security. Then there is death and there is illness -- both are the other. Hell is being surrounded by the other; hell is the other.
But how can you escape the other? Should you run away to the Himalayas you will still not be alone. Sit under a tree; a crow's dropping falls on your head, and you are filled with anger towards the crow. There are the rains and the sun -- irritations everywhere. How will you escape the other who is present everywhere?
The only way to escape the other is to seek the one; then no other remains. Then all fear fades away. There is no death, no illness; there are no inconveniences, because there is no other. Finally you are alone. Fear persists as long as the other remains the other for you.
Ek Omkar Satnam. Once this mantra has penetrated your being, where is fear? God has no fear. Whom should he fear? He is the only one, there is no one besides him.
( Excerpted from The True Name/Courtesy Osho International )
If you have read till here...make sure you don't get entangled in words ignore the message..Words are just medium to deliver the message..Appreciate the helplessness and limitations of words/languages..
