The True Name, Vol 2

The True Name, Vol 2

Talks given from 1/12/74 to 10/12/74

Original in Hindi

10 Chapters

Year published: 1993

Original series title "Ek Omkar Satnam"

The True Name, Vol 2

Chapter #1

Chapter title: Fear Is A Beggar

1 December 1974 am in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Archive code: 7412010

ShortTitle: TRUE201

Audio: Yes

Video: No

THERE IS NO END TO HIS VIRTUES,

NOR TO THEIR NARRATION.

THERE IS NO END TO HIS WORKS AND HIS BOUNTY,

AND ENDLESS WHAT HE SEES AND HEARS.

THERE IS NO KNOWING THE SECRETS OF HIS MIND;

THERE IS NO BEGINNING OR END TO IT.

SO MANY STRUGGLE TO KNOW HIS DEPTH,

BUT NONE HAS EVER ACHIEVED IT.

NO ONE HAS EVER KNOWN HIS LIMITS;

THE FURTHER YOU LOOK, THE FURTHER BEYOND HE LIES.

THE LORD IS GREAT. HIS PLACE IS HIGH,

AND HIGHER EVEN IS HIS NAME.

NANAK SAYS: ONE ONLY KNOWS HIS GREATNESS

WHEN RAISED TO HIS HEIGHTS,

BY FALLING UNDER THE GLANCE

OF HIS ALL-COMPASSIONATE GRACE.

HIS COMPASSION IS BEYOND ALL DESCRIPTION.

THE LORD'S GIFTS ARE SO GREAT HE EXPECTS NOTHING IN RETURN.

HOWEVER GREAT A HERO OR WARRIOR, MAN KEEPS ON BEGGING.

IT IS DIFFICULT TO CONCEIVE THE COUNTLESS NUMBERS WHO GO ON ASKING.

THEY INDULGE THEMSELVES IN DESIRES AND DISSIPATE THEIR LIVES.

AND OTHERS RECEIVE, YET DENY IT.

THEY GO ON SUFFERING FROM THEIR HUNGER,

YET WILL NOT TAKE TO REMEMBRANCE

O LORD, THESE TOO ARE YOUR GIFTS.

YOUR ORDER ALONE GIVES FREEDOM OR BONDAGE.

NOBODY CAN DEBATE THIS FACT.

HE WHO INDULGES IN USELESS BABBLE

REALIZES HIS FOLLY WHEN STRUCK IN THE FACE.

HE ALONE CAN KNOW HIMSELF,

AND ONLY THE RAREST CAN DESCRIBE HIM;

HE BEQUEATHS THE QUALITY OF HIS STATE TO WHOMEVER HE CHOOSES.

NANAK SAYS, HE IS THE KING OF KINGS.

There is no end to His grandeur. Whatever we say about it is so little as to betray our utter incompetence.

Rabindranath Tagore lay on his deathbed. An old friend sitting by his side said to him, "You can leave this world satisfied, you have accomplished whatever you wanted to do. You have attained great respect, you wrote many songs, and the whole world knows you as the divine bard. Really nothing is left undone."

Rabindranath opened his eyes, looked sadly at his friend and said, "Don't say such things. I was just telling God that all I wanted to sing is still unsung. What I wanted to say is still unsaid. My whole life has been spent merely tuning my instrument!" He felt he had not yet begun to sing His praise and already the moment to leave had arrived.

Rabindranath had written six thousand songs, all in praise of God. Yet he felt he hadn't sung a single word of His glory. Nanak also says the same thing and this is the experience of all the rishis who have known. Whatever is said about Him is only like adjusting the instrument; His song can never be sung. Who will sing it? How can one limited personality contain the boundless expanse? How can you hold the skies in your fist? All our efforts prove futile and only after trying totally can we realize our incompetence.

Only when you realize how insignificant you are can the understanding of His greatness take root. Fools always think themselves great; wise men are aware of their smallness. As understanding increases the feeling of being too small, too insignificant, parallels the sense of His vastness and all-pervading presence. A moment comes in this quest when you are completely lost, and only He remains.

The speaker is lost -- what is there to say? Only he remains: His glory, His grandeur, His endless resonance. The seer is lost; only the seen remains. You are extinct, completely annihilated; then who will give tidings of Him? Whatever discussions men have had about God have been hopeless. When a tremendous event occurs we are struck dumb; when a person reaches God he becomes speechless. Not only is speech lost, but the very breath stops. You stop completely at the moment of knowing Him: neither thoughts move, nor words, nor breath, nor does the heart beat. Even a single heartbeat would deprive you of His sight, that slight trembling can produce a separation.

In just such a moment of speechless silence, Nanak has uttered these words. They are not to teach others, but to express his own helplessness.

THERE IS NO END TO HIS VIRTUES,

NOR TO THEIR NARRATION.

THERE IS NO END TO HIS WORKS AND HIS BOUNTY,

AND ENDLESS WHAT HE SEES AND HEARS.

THERE IS NO KNOWING THE SECRETS OF HIS MIND;

THERE IS NO BEGINNING OR END TO IT.

SO MANY STRUGGLE TO KNOW HIS DEPTH,

BUT NONE HAS EVER ACHIEVED IT;

As long as you feel you have known God, you are under an illusion -- you err. For whatever you have known cannot be God, whatever you have measured cannot be God, whatever you have fathomed cannot be God. You must be diving into some lake; you are nowhere near the ocean. You have gone into some insignificant valley; you have not known the abysmal depths where falling is endless. You must have climbed some nondescript hill on the outskirts of your village; you have no knowledge of His Everest where climbing is impossible. We have succeeded in climbing the Everest of the Himalayas, though with great difficulty, but to scale His Everest is unthinkable.

Why is it impossible? Try to understand how inconceivable it is to gauge or understand God.... we are a part of Him. How can a part know the whole? I can hold everything of this world within my hand, except myself. How can I hold myself in my own hand? My eyes can see everything under the sun, but how can they look at me? They cannot see me completely for the simple reason that they are a part of me, and the part can never know the whole; it may get glimpses but not the complete picture.

The difficulty is that we are a part of this vast expanse. Had we not been a part of God we would have known Him; had we been distinct and separate from Him, we could have gone around Him and investigated. But we are a part of Him; we are His very heartbeat, His breath! How can we go around Him? How can we grasp Him? Man is but a particle of sand in this vast expanse, a drop in the ocean. How can this one lonely drop contain the whole ocean? How can it know the entire ocean?

This is very interesting: the drop is in the ocean and the drop is the ocean. So in a very profound sense, the drop knows the ocean, because the ocean is not different from the drop. And yet in another sense it cannot know the ocean because the ocean is not separate from it. This is the biggest paradox of religion: we know God and yet we do not know Him at all. How can this be when He throbs in us and we in Him? We are not far from Him; in fact there isn't the slightest distance between Him and us.

So in a sense we know Him well; and yet we do not know Him at all, because we are a part of Him. How can a part know the whole? We dive in Him, we float in Him, live in Him; at times we forget Him and sometimes we remember Him. Sometimes we feel ourselves very near Him and sometimes far. In clear moments we feel that we have known Him. When the heart gets over-filled, we know that we have known, because we have recognized Him. Wisdom comes, then again it is lost and there is deep darkness. Then we falter again. But this very state of knowing and not knowing is the basic condition of a religious person.

When anyone questioned Buddha about God he would keep silent. What could he say? Contradictions cannot be spoken about. If he were to say, "I know," he would be making a mistake, because who can say that he knows? And if Buddha were to say he did not know, he would be making a false statement, because who knew more than he!

Early one morning a very learned pundit came to Buddha to ask about God. Buddha remained silent. Soon the pundit left. Ananda asked Buddha why he had not answered, since the pundit was a man who knew a great deal and deserved an answer. Buddha said, "Just because he is deserving, it is all the more difficult to give him an answer. If I said I have known Him, it would be wrong, because without knowing Him completely how could I claim to know Him at all? I I said I did not, that too would be false. All claims derive from the ego and the ego can never know Him. Since he is deserving and intelligent and understanding, I had to keep silent. He understood. Did you not see him bow before he left?"

Then Ananda remembered how the pundit was so grateful that he bowed reverently at Buddha's feet. "How wonderful! Did he really understand? That never occurred to me."

Buddha replied, "Horses are of three types. The first type you hit with a whip and they will move, inch by inch. The second type you need not whip; just threaten them and they move. For the third, you need not even crack the whip; just the shadow of the whip sets them going. The pundit belongs to the third type. I had only to show him the shadow and he started on the journey."

Words are the whips; silence is the shadow. Words are needed, because it is the rare horse that responds to the shadow of the whip. The condition of one who knows is such that he cannot say he knows, and he cannot say he does not know. He is in between knowing and not knowing.

Nanak says He is without end. Whatever you say of Him is too little. You keep on saying and yet you find that there is so much to say that you have hardly said anything. All expressions regarding Him are incomplete. And all scriptures are incomplete; they are meant for the horses who don't respond to the shadow of the whip.

THERE IS NO END TO HIS VIRTUES,

NOR TO THEIR NARRATION.

THERE IS NO END TO HIS WORKS AND HIS BOUNTY.

As religion penetrates a person more and more profoundly, he begins to see His various works and also His beneficence.

His works are manifested all around us but most people are blind to it. They say, "Where is God? Who is the creator?" Seeing the creation around them, they are blissfully unaware of the creator! They persist in asking,"Is there a hand behind all this creation? Who could it be?" They are stone-blind, they cannot visualize the hand that has produced this vast creation. The irony is that in other respects they accept and believe blindly.

To date no one has seen the electron with the naked eye. Science says that the electron is the last particle of electricity. As the basis of the world of matter, its various combinations have given rise to the earth. But so far no one has seen the electron, nor is there any hope of seeing it. Then how can scientists believe in the electron? They say that its effects, its results, prove its existence.

The cause is subtle, the effect is gross. We cannot see the hand of God, but we can see His works. We believe in the existence of electrons because we see the results. Yet we deny the existence of God whose proof lies all around us. The flower opens; some hidden hand must make it bloom, or else how can it? The seed breaks but someone must break it; when the hard shell cracks the tender plant appears bearing delicate flowers.

Everywhere we see His handwriting, but the hand cannot be seen. The hand is not visible because there is a balance between the subtle and the gross. The cause is always subtle; the result is always gross. We cannot see the cause. God is the highest cause, but His handiwork is evident all around us.

So there are three types of people -- the three types of horses according to Buddha. First are those who cannot even see His handiwork, they are so blind! They ask: "What is God? Who is the creator? What proof is there? If the vast creation all around us is not enough for them, if they cannot see His hand behind all creation, what else will make them understand?

What greater proof is there than that life moves in a consecutive and balanced order? There is no disjunction anywhere within this enormous leela, this play. It is a continuous flow. Night and day the music of creation plays its enchanting melody. Everything happens as it should. The universe is not a chaos, but a cosmos; it is not happening by chance but by a well-determined law working all the time.

This law is referred to as dhamma or dharma. Lao Tzu calls it tao, the way; Nanak calls it hukum, divine order. When Nanak says hukum do not imagine that He is standing somewhere issuing orders. Hukum means the universe is an order, not a chaos. Things do not happen here haphazardly. An ordering hand is in everything, providing a purpose behind each event. All happenings are directed towards their ultimate development.

If you have no eyes for creation you are totally blind. There are many who cannot see the hand behind creation. When you see a small picture or statue and you ask who made this, you never for a moment think it may have been formed by chance. But such a vast painting hangs all around you, each leaf a work of His genius, and you cannot see Him behind all this? You must simply have made up your mind not to see Him; you have resolved to turn your back towards Him as if you feel there is some danger and you are afraid.

Certainly the fear is there. No sooner do you recognize His hand behind the canvas of this vast creation than you are a changed person; you cannot remain the same. Whoever hears even the faintest murmur of the divine music in creation has to alter his life, because once you begin to see His hand behind everything, you cannot continue to do what you have been doing; it all appears wrong.

As long as you pretend He doesn't exist you can sin, misbehave, mistreat others, and give yourself full freedom to indulge in any evil; as soon as His hand appears to you that freedom is lost. Then you have to think twice before you act and pay more attention to remembrance, to remembering God, because now you know that He sees, that He is present. He is in and around everyone, everything. Whatever you do to anyone, you do to Him. If you pick someone's pocket, it is His pocket you pick; if you steal, you steal from Him; if you kill, it is Him you kill.