Existence is divine. It is overflowing with God. But, we seek God elsewhere. God is not separate from existence. God is not the creator; God is creativity. The division between the creator and creation is false. There is no creator and there is no creation. There is only creativity. When a flower blooms, it is God blooming, when a bird sings it is God singing again, when the sun rises, it is God rising again, when you open your eyes it is God opening His eyes again. In nature that creativity is unselfconscious. In man that creativity is trying to become conscious. Man is the morning, nature is the night. In nature God is asleep, and in man He is trying to become awake.

That is why Gurbani insists so much on surati — remembrance, awareness, consciousness. The more aware you are the more divine you will be. You are already divine, but you have forgotten it. With awareness you will recognise your true self. Only in awareness you will be able to see who you are.

Only awareness will help. You will have to light a small lamp of consciousness in your heart. You have to become more silent, you have to drop the noises in your head; that continuous procession of thoughts will have to be stopped. And, once that procession of thoughts is no more and your heart is alert, aware and conscious, you will see the divine in everything.

God is not separate and far away. He is breathing in your lungs; He is beating in your heart; He is pulsating in your energy. He is your love and He is your anger; He has been your birth and He will be your death. God is simply the name of the totality of life.

God is not the singer but the singing. Only the singing is heard; the singer is never found. Only the music is heard; the musician is never found. There is nobody behind the flute. The universe is not the creation of God; it is itself God. Nobody has caused it. The world is the body of God. They are not separate; it is one reality. God is not a noun; God is a verb. It is not work done and finished; it is work in progress; it goes on happening.

Since forgetfulness has become our nature, we need to break this wall of oblivion because of which there is the sense of separation. In reality there is no separation; it exists in the mind only because of forgetfulness.

To break the wall of forgetfulness the following steps can help. They are actual steps which have to be taken practically. They are not theories or doctrines. They are steps leading to awareness.

First of all is the ability to listen. You need to develop the ability to listen because what you think is listening is only hearing. You hear things because your ears are open and they receive the sounds that are all around you. Unlike the eyes that you can open and close at will, your ears are open and are receiving the sounds all the time. But, this is not listening. They are sounds falling on a heap of all kinds of sounds already piled up in your head. In order to listen, you have to become silent. You have to empty the mind of all the rubbish it has collected. You have to become silent to be able to listen.

Silence is the pre-requisite for listening. A mind full of all kinds of noises cannot listen. Gurbani talks of the miracle of listening in four verses of Japuji. This quality of listening cannot be achieved without total silence. But, the mind keeps chattering non-stop. All prayer and meditation is an attempt to silence the mind. In other words, the journey begins by moving from the outside to within. First, cut out the external distractions as much as possible. This is by way of the first step. Ultimately, you will have to inculcate the ability to remain silent even in the noise. But, to begin with, it is important. Just as we need a fence around a sapling to protect it from animals. Once, the plant takes root, there is no need of the fence. The plant can stand on its own. When you reduce the external noises, you will start listening to the voices in your head. Initially, they will scare you. You had never imagined what all goes on in your mind. You will want to deny them and reject them. Or, you might want to dwell on them. Either way, you are identifying yourself with your thoughts. They are the hurdles. In order to silence these thoughts, you will have to break your identity with them. You need to remember that they are your thoughts; they are not you. You will have to tell yourself again and again that you are separate from your thoughts. You will have to become non-judgmental about your thoughts. It is an old habit of passing judgment; you say some thoughts are good and the others are not. As long as this continues, you will not be able to break away from them. You need to develop an indifferent attitude towards them. They are like clouds in the sky. They come and go. You must just watch them indifferently, without identifying with them or condemning them.

To be able to listen silently, you have to become passive and receptive; you have to become feminine; you become a womb. Whether you are man or woman, you become a passive receptivity and wait like a woman waits for her lover. You are ready to become pregnant with the divine. You are utterly silent and passive, not doing anything, just being. You are in a state of emptiness. But this frightens people. That is why it needs tremendous courage to go in and encounter this silence, this emptiness, this nothingness.

However, if you pick up the courage to go on, you will be surprised. Slowly and gradually, you will come across some moments when there are no thoughts. Those are the silent moments when you are totally there to listen. When there are no thoughts moving in the mind, then hearing becomes listening. Then you become all ears. You become so silent, so utterly silent that you can hear everything. Then you can hear the eternal sound. You will hear the ecstatic sound of music which is always being played continuously. The existence is full and overflowing with this music. It is the music of the wind blowing through the trees; it is the music of the water flowing down the mountains; it is the music of the insects humming, the birds chirping and the rain falling.

 

 

When you hear the music without the musical instruments

You have arrived at the state of fearlessness.

When you remain untouched in the thick of the marketplace

You have found the secret of yoga.

Only when you are capable of listening can you pray. But, you start your prayer by saying something. You ask for power and prosperity and even peace. But, you are always asking. And, true prayer is thankfulness, gratitude. True prayer is first listening to the divine music and then being full of gratitude. The real prayer demands nothing, desires nothing. Real prayer is a desire-less silence. Real prayer is a heart brimming with gratitude.

Real prayer is not seeking something and finding it. Real prayer is remembering that which is already given but has been forgotten. There is nothing to be done but to see that there is nothing to be done and no one to do it. To see this is emptiness. In this emptiness the ego drops, it melts and disappears. Real prayer is a silent awaiting. Real prayer is a passionate but patient awaiting. The fact is that whatever you are waiting for is already there; only you cannot see or hear it because you are so full of your inner noise.

God is all about remembering. God is not somewhere else. Your being itself is God. You are divine. Where will you go looking for Him? He is the seeker in you. You will never find Him because what you are seeking is You. The seeker and the sought are one. This is the riddle of life. Forgetfulness is the world; remembrance is moksha.