Meditation ...........Contd
What is desired of the seeker is to understand how to surrender while there is yet time to understand the truth while he is alive, healthy, hale and hearty, and acknowledge that his strength and might is going to yield to a higher Truth, in spite of his myriad wishes and preferences. He must, therefore, acquiesce to act in accordance with the Divine dispensation, accepting the maxim that He is the Doer, beyond our reckoning and our limited view of matter.
In my childhood, adjacent to our backyard was the kitchen of our family hotel, where the cook’s mate used to sit and hack the chicken. I was fascinated and awe-struck to see that butchering, as chicken after chicken was guillotined. Some used to make shrill noise and dreadfully undergo the ordeal while others perhaps understood the inevitability of the final blow to come and submitted silently or with a mild whimper. So is the destiny of man. After elevation to the highest positions of power and pelf, he must go, depart with a whimper or lot of noise, but go he must. While living life in Society as a useful member, therefore, passionate infatuation with the mundane matters may be re-focused, instead, with the same zeal to atonement with the Lord:
[SGGS 100] Like a child enjoys drinking milk, Like the penniless man is satiated with wealth, Like the thirsty feels the cool with cold water, So does this mind feel atoned with God!
There are innumerable similes given in the
Guru Granth Sahib on this very subject, to demonstrate the state of God-intoxicated mind and its intensity, compared with the normal worldly behaviour.
[SGGS 838]
Like the dying of the moth over a lamp, Like the thief making entry for theft, Like the elephant overpowerd by sexual urge, Like the house-holder dealing in malpractices, Like the gambler unable to resist gambling, O Nanak, in passion join with the Lord!
Meditation is, thus, not in inducing trance-like state of mind, but consciously to love God as one does the material things.
That is the uniqueness of the
Sikh parlance. The scriptures are universal and open to all members of society. Everyone understands the texts according to one’s given intellectual level. The understanding person lives in the midst of this world, fully participating in its functions and routine, but with the difference that he is not lost head-over-heals, but acknowledges the direction of right and wrong. It is important to be upgraded by honest practice of truth and truthful living. Guru Gobind Singh added the oath-taking at the time of khande-ki- pahul administration as a precondition.