AND PAIN AND PLEASURE GRANTED.

BY HIS ORDER DO SOME ATTAIN SALVATION,

OR ENDLESSLY WANDER THROUGH CYCLES OF REBIRTHS.

ALL ARE SUBJECT TO HIS ORDER; NONE IS BEYOND HIS REACH.

NANAK SAYS, HE WHO UNDERSTANDS HIS ORDER BECOMES FREED FROM HIS SELF.

Once you understand the essential, that all is His, what remains of the I? There is no one left to say I. Understand that you desire to get rid of the ego when it causes you pain; yet the trouble is, it is the same ego through which you can experience happiness. That ego gives you pain is well known: when a person abuses you, your ego feels hurt and you want to be free of it.

People come and ask me how they can be freed from sorrow. They also say they know that it is the ego that is the cause of all suffering. Then they ask how to get rid of the ego. I tell them: "How is not the question. If you really felt that the ego was the cause of all your ills, you would have abandoned it long ago. There is no need then to ask!"

But it is not so simple; you want to rid yourself of the ego half of the time; you want a fifty-fifty arrangement. The same you that is hurt by accusation and wants to get rid of the ego is delighted when praise comes and the ego feels nourished. Make a mistake and you suffer, perform well and you are delighted; when people abuse you it hurts, when they sing your praises you are all smiles. Both alternatives take place on the plane of the ego.

The trouble is that if you let go of the ego your joys will end along with your sorrows. You want to preserve your happiness and be rid of unhappiness. This has never happened, nor can it ever happen. If they stay, they remain together; if they go, they depart together. They are the two sides of the same coin. You want to throw away one side and keep the other. Since that is impossible, you alternate: one minute you throw the coin aside and the next you pick it up again. You can't keep -- or abandon -- one side without the other.

Understand the plight of the ego: if you leave both sorrow and joy to God, who is the authentic source of all life, your ego has no place to stand. Then how will you say, "I am"? I is nothing but a collection of all your actions. It is not an object, and has no independent existence. If you let go of the doership and say, "You are the doer, I am only an instrument," then where is the ego? Then whatever He directs, you do; whatever He does not direct, you do not do. If He makes you a sinner, you are a sinner; if He makes you a saint, you are a saint.

Try to understand the uniqueness of Nanak's statement. He says that only through divine order does a person attain knowledge, and it is through divine order alone that a man wanders through countless cycles of life and death. What Nanak means to convey is that if you are a sinner do not brand yourself a sinner. Rather, say "His will."

You might think there is the danger of a person gaily committing crimes blaming His will. The crux of the matter is that once a person knows it is all His will, whatever he does is a worthy deed. As long as you do not know, there is a continuous conflict between you and Him, which by definition, gives rise to sin. Sin is the result of the struggle between you and God. This conflict brings about the state of inflicting suffering on oneself as well as on others. The day you leave everything to Him ,all sins flee.

Nanak says that too is happening through Him. If you are a sinner, it is He; if you are a saint, it is He. Don't think it is you who has done the good deed nor that it is you who has committed the sin. The very concept 'I have done' is an error, a mistake.

There is only one ignorance; it lies in the belief that "I have done..." There is only one knowledge; it consists in recognizing the ultimate creator. The creator does everything; I am only the means, the instrument. There is no one and nothing outside of the divine order. Everything resides within it.

THOSE WHO KNOW POWER WILL SING OF HIS MIGHT.

KNOWING CHARITY, SOME SING OF HIS BOUNTY AS THE SIGN.

SOME SING OF HIS VIRTUES AND HIS GREATNESS,

SOME SING OF HIS KNOWLEDGE, WHEN SCHOLARSHIP IS THEIR BENT.

SOME SING THAT HE CREATES THE BODY AND TURNS IT BACK TO DUST.

SOME SING THAT THE LIFE HE TAKES WILL AGAIN BE REBORN.

SOME SING THAT HE IS FAR, FAR AWAY.

SOME SING THAT HE SEES ALL AND IS EVERYWHERE.

THERE IS NO END TO HIS ATTRIBUTES,

THOUGH A MILLION DESCRIBE HIM IN A MILLION WAYS.

THE GIVER GIVES ETERNALLY, THOUGH THE RECEIVER TIRES OF RECEIVING;

SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME HAVE THEY SUBSISTED ON HIS ENDLESS BOUNTY.

HE IS THE ORDAINER AND BY HIS ORDER DOES THE UNIVERSE TURN.

SAYS NANAK, HE IS WITHOUT A CARE, ENDLESSLY BLISSFUL.

His definitions are countless, and still incomplete. How can man who is himself incomplete define the complete? Whatever he says will be incomplete. How can the part bear witness to the whole? Whatever the part utters will relate only to itself. Can the atom know the absolute? Whatever it understands cannot transcend itself.

So those who can sing, sing of His attributes, and yet the unknown remains unknown. The Upanishads sang His praises till they were tired, as did the Gita, the Koran, the Bible. His is indescribable, undefinable -- He is made that way. It has been impossible to define Him completely. All scriptures are incomplete and they are bound to be, because they are limited man's effort to manifest the infinite.

The sun comes out, and the artist paints a picture of it. However well he paints, the picture will give off no light. You cannot keep the painting in a dark room and expect the room to be lit by it. If a poet witnesses the sunrise and writes a beautiful song about it, no matter how earnest and profound the feelings he conveys, his song cannot light the darkened room.

All songs sung in praise of God, all pictures representing His attributes, are incomplete. No song can tell of Him completely, because we cannot bring His being down into them. Words are hollow and must remain hollow. If you are thirsty, the word water will not quench your thirst. If you are hungry, the word fireis not going to cook your food. And if the desire of God has arisen within you, the word god is not enough. It is enough only for those with no desire.

Understand well: if you are not thirsty, the word water or H2O is enough to name it. But if you are thirsty, the difficulty begins. Then neither the word water nor the symbol H2O works. You may gather together all the words for water -- there may be three thousand languages in the world -- and tie them round your neck, they will not yield a single drop of water. If you are not thirsty, you may play with the words.

Philosophy is a game for people who are not thirsty. Religion is the journey of those who are thirsty. Therefore philosophy plays with words; not so religion. Religion takes cognizance of the hints the words give and follows them. When the quest is for the lake, what can the word lake do? When the search is for life, the word life alone sounds hollow.