en the true Guru Ji went to Sangladeep, then in some island or near
V V some beach, or some sandy spot surrounded by water he met Gorakh Nath and his mentor Machchinder Nath. They were already sitting there when Guru Nanak Dev Ji reached there. When, from a distance, they saw Guru Nanak Dev Ji coming, then Machchinder asked: O Gorakh, who is coming?
Gorakh respectfully said: He is Guru Nanak Dev Ji, and with him two of his disciples are coming. Machchinder was delighted and he greeted Guru Ji and welcomed him. Both asked each other about their welfare and sat down. Then Machchinder said: O Guru Nanak Dev Ji, we are sitting on the sea beach. If a living person tries to swim across the sea, he will be drowned but if a dead body is thrown into the sea then it floats. Even though it floats, it is dead. You tell how a person may swim across the sea and remain alive.
The true Guru Ji said: O king of yogis, Learn to swim in water. Initially, you will learn to swim with the strength of your arms and feet. When you become a swimmer, then you learn to swim without moving your hands and feet. In this way you will learn to swim without any effort like a dead body floating without any effort. And then the swimmer remains living also.
But O yogi, you tell what for you want to swim? Just swimming is a play. It is an exercise of the body. One should swim with some aim.
Machchinder: One should swim so that the body remains healthy, life may prolong, concentrate in self and people should praise.
Guru Ji: For all this, you have renounced the world. In solitude, you are absorbed in Hath yoga. So, you have renounced the worldly ocean. Now, you are walking with dry legs. Why do you want to swim? Your need is to walk only.
Machchinder startled! He pondered.
Then said: Well, who needs to swam? Who has the ocean in front of him?
Guru Ji: That is for us who have to reach the Lord. For us who are not seeking comfort for ourselves, but want to meet the Bestowal of comforts, the beloved Lord. It is for us who are hankering to somehow reach the door of the beloved that comes after crossing many doors. We are in search of that real door where the living is with peace and honor. In love of the Lord, we are in desperate search of the door of the Lord whom we love and we are enquiring that somebody should tell where is that door where the beloved resides?
Machchinder: That door is our soul.
Guru Ji: We want to find the master of our soul, the Supreme Soul, who is the creator, the Lord, and we love Him as such. We have to find His door where he sits and looks after His creation.
Machchinder: Then what do you think, where does He live?
Guru Ji: The throne on which our beloved Lord sits, its name is truth.
The door of the house where the throne is set, its name is suffering.
It has two leaves as if inlaid. Their name is desire and anxiety.
The guard in front of this door, his name is anger.
Around this is a trench that is full of water. Its name is riches.
Our Lord has made a house in the centre of this water, where He lives.
So, we want to learn to swim, because our aim is not to just eradicate our suffering or to reach a stage of thoughtlessness but we have to reach the Lord's country, the Lord's house and meet Him.
Machchinder: Then your path is not concentration.
Guru Ji: Our path is 'Love of the Lord'.
Machchinder: Whom you have not seen, what is the form of His love?
Guru Ji's eyes had tears of love on listening to this. He looked towards the sky. Then his eyes half closed and then closed. Two drops fell down and he uttered: O Lord, You are all. There is nobody like 'You'. You, You, You, there is nobody like 'You'. You are infinite, but 'Your' name, 'Your' name reveals 'You'. O mind, don't utter loudly, whom do you want to tell? Keep to yourself. The love should remain in the mind. He knows all. He Himself blesses.
Uttering thus, he became silent and for some time there was silence.
When he opened his eyes again, then Machchinder said: We also say one God, one God. What is the difference?
Guru Ji: O Yogi, Whether one is a family man or a recluse or a yogi or a pandit, till the desires and anxieties are there, just saying one God, what does
it mean? The desires and anxieties don't let you go beyond just saying one God or just believing in one God. But if one remains detached from desires, then the Lord who is 'One', you can meet. One should have one desire i.e. to meet the Lord. One should remain detached from other worldly desires.
One should remain in the love of the Lord, remembrance of His name and not go into forgetfulness. Then one should stop worrying about other things. What the Lord does is good and we should accept it as good.
In this way, the mind gets engrossed in the love of the Lord and all fears and anxieties go. O Yogi, the ocean that I have said 'the trench full of water named riches', one can swim across in this way. Yes, one can swim across in this way. While living and swimming, neither we get drowned nor we die.
This is called winning over death while living.
Machchinder said: O fortunate saint, a person can either live in desires or in despair. To remain detached from desires is impossible. One lives in desires. People are dependent on each other. People desire something from each other. Everybody lives in such desires. The mother is bringing up the son with the desire that he will give comfort when he becomes grown up.
Businessman earns with the desire that the money earned will give comforts.
We yogis are in despair that the world is perishable. There is no gain in the passions of the world. So, we live in forests and in despair. We cannot go on the 'path of renunciation' by living in the family. So, it is essential to leave the house. From your talk, it appears, that you are living in a higher state of meditation, but you have not dressed like a sadhu, you have no signet or symbol of a sadhu. How do you control your wandering mind? In my view you look for a spiritual guide and get guidance from him. Then you can live in despair.
Guru Ji: O Yogi, how is your going to the family people and asking for money justified when you have renounced them? How is it renunciation and living in despair? You go and beg where you should not go because you consider them worth renouncing. We also beg but we beg from the benevolent Lord and we pray that He may bless us with His name. To ask for food or to inform the people that you have come, you blow the trumpet. We also blow a shell and the people listen to it but that is not shell. That is the discourse I am giving to the world that the body doesn't go to the Lord but the mind goes. So, you attach your mind to the Lord. Remember Him.
I have a spiritual guide, the Lord, who has created the world and such gigantic task he can do it in no time. Then the Lord has created this body from earthly elements, like water and air, and has given life to it. In this way, the earthly body has become living. Then this living is not with blindness. He
has given two eyes also to see. Then to bring up this body he has provided the earth, that provides food to it and after death takes the body back.
So, O yogi, people have forgotten the creator, and benevolent Lord and people have become greedy in desires. They have forgotten to sing His praises. What I mean is, that to sing the praises of the benevolent Lord and remembrance of His name is the correct and easy path.
I have no enmity with anyone, whether a Hindu ascetic or recluse or practitioner of Hath yoga or a Muslim saint, may be in any practice, they are innumerable. Whenever I meet anyone my aim is to sing the praises of the Lord. One thing is, that by singing the praises of the Lord, I remain dyed in His love. Second, this is my service to the Lord. Third, this is a service to the world, that I give a touch of the real thing i.e., praise of the Lord to the seekers of the Lord. This is a service to them also.
O Machchinder, we have to desire the Lord. We have not to leave this desire, but we have to detach our mind from worldly desires. The worldly desires never get fulfilled and the non-fulfillment causes fear and sorrow.
This 'desire for the Lord' we can get by singing the praises of the Lord. Like, paper and salt get dissolved in water very quickly.
Similarly, the desires trap the mind quickly. Now, if you make the paper oily with oil, and wrap the salt in something oily, then the water is not able to dissolve them quickly.
Similarly, when the mind gets dipped in singing the praises of the Lord, then the desires cannot trap the mind easily.
In this way, we can live in the world but with a detached mind.
Like the lotus in the muddy water is not affected by the muddy water. In fact it gets nourishment from the muddy water.
So, when one gets the holy company of the saints who are in the praises of the Lord and who recite the Lord's Name, then the messengers of death cannot come near him. With the holy company, by rubbing the oil of 'recitation of Name' and singing the praises of the Lord they have become immune, first, from being trapped by desires and second from being touched by the messengers of death. So, why should they do Hath yoga and remain in the fear of the messengers of death.
By singing the praises of the Lord, they reach the palace of the Lord.
Machchinder: O Nanak, What you have said, we both have understood. Isn't it Gorakh?
Gorakh: Yes, we have understood but
Machchinder: But the path you have told is more difficult than renunciation. No, no. It is not possible at all to do meditation while living in the family.
Without meditation you cannot control the breath. Without controlling the breath, the mind cannot be controlled. One cannot do meditation without discipline. One cannot be disciplined without renunciation. In renunciation you cannot be steadfast without initiation. So, only that person who becomes a recluse and gets initiation and then follows all disciplines of Hath yoga can become a saint. That saint will have peace of mind and will be immortal. Then he can make more disciples and initiate them. You cannot become a saint in family living, who can swim and make others swim the worldly ocean.
On listening to this Guru Ji said: O Machchinder, listen to me. Even after controlling the breath if the mind goes after passions then what is the gain?
You see the ascetics who practice Hath yoga. They get into the habit of drinking wine, opium etc. What one actually requires is that one should rein the five fires, i.e. sex, anger, greed, sentiment and pride. Whenever they try to trap, one should not get trapped. You learn to rein the mind to control the passions. One who has reined the mind to control the passions will himself be able to swim and make generations swim the worldly ocean. His attachment to the Lord will keep his mind strong because he will get the strength of the Lord in him. When he has reined the mind and controlled the five fires, and remains in the remembrance of the Lord incessantly, then he is the real saint.
A person who is free from worldly passions and is immersed in the love of the Lord, he is the real saint. What I mean is, that his character should be good and pure, and he should be engrossed in the love of the Lord. Then he is a real saint. He has tranquility.
Machchinder: Without breath control, how can you do meditation?
Guru Ji: Keeping one's mind in the incessant remembrance of the Lord's name will be the meditation. By remaining in the remembrance of the Lord the mind will be elevated. With this remembrance he will get a sensation of the presence of the Lord in his mind and body. So to say, he will get engrossed in the love of the Lord. This is the yoga that our saint will do. Then he won't beg for food from door to door as a beggar. He will be a family man. He will earn and eat and also share with others.
But for one thing he also begs. He prays: O Lord, be merciful and gracious. Give me strength that I should always be engrossed in your love.
In this way, he has controlled his five fires and lives engrossed in the love of the Lord and in prayers.
He lives in the presence of the Lord in his mind always, i.e. whatever are worldly chores he does in the presence of the Lord. Thus, his remembrance of the Lord remains incessant and his character remains unblemished.
Anxieties and fear do not come near him because he has the wealth of contentment with him. Since he is in contentment he is satiated always and is happy in what the Lord gives.
O Machchinder, listen what are the distinctive features of a saint. Nanak is not telling the qualities of this saint in complicated, unpleasant and sorrowful words that have puzzling meanings, but is telling in an always living, soul awakening and loving language, full of nectar. One who lives with mind detached from worldly desires will surely reach the Lord. One who meets the Lord is a saint.
O Machchinder, Nanak says: Our saint does not ask the disciple to pierce his ears and wear a signet. He does not follow the ritual that the disciple should first pierce his ears and then only get initiation. The saint, that I have said, will guide the disciples by telling them: That the Lord who is formless, 'He is there'. He is formless but He reveals Himself in His name. One can reach Him by 'recitation of His name'.
This is his ritual for initiating a person into discipleship. This saint does not drink wine and eat snacks that may intoxicate, as the yogis drink, but he drinks the blessed Name that he gets from Guru Ji and 'recitation of the Name' is the wine that he drinks and this is what he eats. This is the wine and snacks he gives to the disciples. This saint has comprehension of, not one, but the six schools of philosophy.
In this way, this saint meets the Supreme Lord and gets eternal peace.
So, O Machchinder, O Gorakh, our path of 'Living in the family with detached mind' goes like this.
On listening to all this, they felt wondrousness and bowed to Guru Ji.
In this way, the dialogue with Machchinder came to an end.
The yogis went to their place of stay and Guru Ji like a cool, sweet, blissful breeze went to Sangladeep to bless King Shivnabh.
Guru Ji's words to Machchinder are repeated once again:
The true path is: 'Recitation of the Lord's Name with love'.
Let us also recite:
'Waheguru, Waheguru, Waheguru.' 'O Lord, O Lord, O LordStarting with at least five minutes a day.
DODO