The enlightened masters, the Gurus and saints whose spontaneous outbursts of ecstasy comprise the Guru Granth Sahib, were seers, visionaries. Seers differ from the common man because they see things as they are, whereas the common man sees them through the mind which is blurred with the dust of the prejudices, biases and conditioning of a myriad lives. The seers look beyond the mind, whereas the others see only through the mind. The seers stand out in the open looking at the whole sky, whereas the common men look at the sky through the window of the mind. The sky remains the same but we think it is the patch that is visible through the window. Vision refers to the ability to have an all-comprehensive view of the whole. Call it vision of the ultimate or the vision of the commonplace. It is the same. There is no difference between the two. Either everything is divine or everything is mundane. It is a choice of words. The truth is indivisible. Gurbaui sings of this vision in innumerable ways.

The first concept that materialises from the study of the Guru Granth Sahib is that the ultimate or the divine has no form, or, all the forms that exist are the forms of the divine. In other words, the forms of everything visible are apparent, whereas the reality lies hidden behind the forms. The world seems to be involved in a thousand things but the power that makes it alive remains invisible because it has no form. Or, as long as it functions through it, that is its form. And that holds good for the greatest and the smallest form. Divinity runs through the entire creation for the creator is none other than creativity itself. Like the dancer and dancing. The dancer is the dancing. They cannot be separated. An artist can paint a picture and remain separate from it, but the dancer and dancing are one. The dancer is a dancer only when he is dancing, and the dance cannot exist without the dancer. The creator is the creativity. In nature, nothing is static; everything is vibrantly dynamic. In nature, there are no nouns; there are only verbs. There is no creation but creativity, because it is changing every moment. Thus, all these dynamic forms are divine or the divine has no form.

Thousands are your eyes but you have no eyes.

Thousands are your forms, but you have no form.

Thousands are your feet, but you have no feet.

Without fragrance, thousands are your fragrances.

Everything shines with your light.

Secondly, there is no space or time where the ultimate is not. This creation is full and overflowing with the divine. Guru Nanak says, ‘Binay kari je duja hoi’. I would appeal to you if you were another. There is no difference in the intrinsic nature of things and beings. Sabhe ghat Ram boley Rama boley Ram bina ko boley re.

Who is speaking through all the living beings? The ultimate!

The elephant or the ant; all are shapes moulded out of the same clay.

Trees and mammals, ants and insects; everything is full of the divine.

Thirdly, divinity is the nature of things. Everything is potentially divine. Remove the veil from anything and what do you find underneath? The divine! And the way to realise this truth is to look within. If one wants to know the ocean, there are two ways of doing so — either study the whole ocean or a single drop, since the drop contains the ocean. Similarly, whatever is in the universe is contained in oneself. ‘Jo brahmande soi pinde.’

So if you have to look for the divine, look within. Bernard Shaw once said, “Beware of the man whose God is in the skies.” The moment you conceive of a God in the heavens, you have created an unbridgeable gap between yourself and Him. God is not a person living in the skies. God is everywhere. In fact, the basic nature of the entire creation is divine because the creator and creativity are one. The Guru Granth Sahib echoes the Christian dictum of “Know thyself,” or the Hindu mantra of “Aham Brahmasi.” Look within, for God is within you.

Why wander in the jungles in search of Him?

He who lives everywhere and is inseparable from all is clinging to you. Like the fragrance resides in the flower and the fire in the coal. He resides in you continuously. Look inside your heart.

Fourthly, the soundless sound (anhad naad) permeates the universe. That is the word, the shabad, which the sages can hear. That is the only sound of creation, the rest is noise. Those who succeed in silencing the noise of the continuously chattering mind, can listen to the eternal sound of Omkar. All the prayers only add to the noise. The real prayer can only be heard, not said. The authentic, the genuine prayer is resounding all around. The whole universe is overflowing with the sound.

Your heart is the flute, the musical instrument; the wind plays on it.

Nine are the holes that all can see; the tenth has been mysteriously concealed.

Fifthly, the Guru Granth Sahib contains the ecstatic outpourings of devotees drenched in love. Lovers are full of love; they need to shower it. It is very difficult to love an abstraction; it is easier to realise it. The devotees of the Bhakti Movement of the medieval period sang of love and devotion. The Guru Granth Sahib is also full of verses of love—platonic and erotic. And the object of love is sometimes called the father or the master or the husband and lover. This is sheer expression of love. It does not diffuse the concept of the formless divinity.

Finally, just as the ultimate has many forms and is still formless, similarly, the divine has many names but is nameless. This is the profoundest mystery enclosed in the Guru Granth Sahib. Almost every verse in the 1,430-page holy scripture of the Sikhs mentions Naam in one way or another. Yet the ultimate is nameless. To further deepen the mystery, a variety of names of God have been repeated profusely. Ram occurs most often but other names such as Hari, Govind, Narayan, Allah, and Waheguru also occur again and again. The Muslims talk of hundred names of Allah and have a list of ninety-nine names; the hundredth is silence, no name, the nameless. The Hindus talk of thirty-three crores of names of God, implying that all names are His name or that He is nameless. The Guru Granth Sahib sings and chants Naam so often that by chanting it, one day, you can transcend it and attain the nameless divinity.