The Gift:
I am fortunate enough to see and meet you all. The uniqueness of this celebration is that we ourselves are hosts and guests, So today we are meeting, with wishes of peace and happiness.
A new, unique and virgin view of point, with which we will encounter life.
Wise have said, “If our first step is placed with understanding then our destination becomes easier, and also our path, pleasant.”
Paint your own portrait, then you will realize.How difficult it is, to give yourself any face
This line written by an anonymous writer, deepened my thoughts. True, its hard giving ourselves a face therefore we give ourselves outer faces. I am American, Greek, Iranian or Italian or I’m Hindu, Muslim, Jewish or Christian. I am not going to do this or that. From where does all this start?
We all say it starts from family, but here our very first step becomes wrong. Family, country, religion and rituals are all objects. The subject of life is only one, from which life starts. Which is “I”. When the level of “I” changes, its color, characteristics, and shape changes. My gift emerges from this point that today we will see the life through “I” and not from any object like family, country or religion.
What does family say? What are the rules and regulations of the country? What is religion? Why is there religion? What is the true definition of religion? We have to analyze all these points on the basis of our own deep existence and always consider “I” as a subject.
Virtues that awakens within “I” are the ones we recognize, which means we travel with the virtues and vice in motions.
Life’s motion is due to this virtues and vices only. Love, service, care, for family, is the form of “I”. Whatever we see in the family like love, care, peace, sorrow, is because it is already within us. Family awakens our internal potential, giving us the ability to walk.
When we go in society, then we learn what is yours and mine, rituals and economic differences.
Family strengthens the roots then society like leafs and branches of the tree brings happiness due to which our potential become deeper as well as new ones spout.
“Country” takes our potential ahead from which flowers of deep feelings blooms upon our happiness. It means, “I” potential individual identity starts to grow.
If these three stages (family, society and country) we stand in the physical world, where we developed relationships with physical appearance, shape and size. These potential, which are in motion within “I”, becomes powerful with the supported by these three stages. Why did “I” became powerful? Because it had power, its strength has motion, and became powerful with the three stages, or in other worlds the power received its aim. Who’s strength is it? It is of “I”. “I” owns potential, What is Potential? “I” virtue.
Family and country turns the limited potential of “I” to unlimited by giving motion. This motion do not belong to family or country instead it belongs to “I” which has created its motion in this family, society and country.
In family this “I” takes the form of son, daughter, brother, sister, mother, father, which is very limited. In society it becomes friendship and in country it takes the form of human due to which this limited form undergoes expansion.
“I” is neither a ritual nor it is subjected to any discrimination. It’s not a citizen of any country that we can label it as American or Canadian. We should not see this “I” through any object. Everything is expanding of this “I” and is projecting the possibilities of “I.” There is one question ( what am “I”) and one subject (“I”) and we have to take one action (finding the answer) and this action will become Karma. Family is the foundation of life. Society has erected its wall and country made the house.
Family acts as boundary, society makes person mature and country takes care and give direction to this maturity. What are these outer supports? Do they not supported “I”?
Our personal life is a part of public life. It is our companion in developing the potential in “me” because the companion is one which is with us.
Where are we together?
We are together in family, society and country and nothing else. “I” is a kind of seed from which countless features can grow. Here grow means that we awake towards the potential of our virtues.
In childhood the potential of “I” spends in family, and youth in society and country. Do not forget that potential of “I” is not of family or country.
For example “I” was born in Sikh religion, so I had to go to Gurdwara but I dreamt of Krishna though I do not know who Krishna was.
At the physical level “I” am sikh but at mental level “I” am hindu. At night I would hear music. After 20 years I came to know that it was verses of Quran, means at deep mental level “I” was muslim.
Now the question is that if in this physical world we call this “I” as Sikh but is that the reality?
“I” means that in this “I” the whole universe exist. With the birth of the baby, the word family comes into existence. Country or society come into existence rarely and religion comes into existence very rarely in centuries. Why? Because the journey of “I” is physical, it is the journey of an object.
Not only in this world but in whole universe the religion is one and the first word of it is “I.” The journey starts with “I” and ends with “I.”
Many people die in their childhood. The body can age to 90 but “I” always stays in childhood. If 52% reach their youth, then old age has been rare. Why? Because our speed is slow, by then, time has come to change the body.
Then what should be done? We should live the character of “I.” Means we should make “I” as subject. We should not let any object become subject.
What is this “I”?
The answer to this question changes at every level, it changes with every color and shape. Why?
“I” is like water – see through. Whatever color we put into water, it becomes that color. But what is the color of water? What is the color, and shape of air? What is the color of space and temperature?
Body, society, family, country, these are mirrors through which we see and recognize “I”.
“I” is a feeling. It’s a sensation. It is consciousness. How can we see consciousness? Question is one but it has many answers because “I” is a producer as well as director and actor. “I” is a story as well as words. Its shape is shapeless.
“I” is a universe, it’s a country, it’s a home but still its shapeless.
“I” is nature as well as seasons. Happiness, sorrow all are seasons. “I” is school as well as teacher and student. “I” is subject but when it becomes object then the journey to know “I” begins and hence starts the journey of religion. “I” meets object, weather family or country. Weather “I” goes to Church, Temple, Gurdwara or Mosque. These are all objects, though they are religious objects. Every object’s subject is one i.e. “I”. This means all these religions are expansion of some form of “I”.
Every religion is also known as “Mat” i.e. knowledge, Akl or understanding.
Sikh “Mat” is the “Mat” of Baba Nanak. It is about how Guru Nanak saw and understood life, world, and universe. This action of describing, its sensation, the moments of those divine feelings, is how the capability to describe it was born, that capability is the “mat” of Guru Nanak. When “Mat” finds acceptability in society it becomes the process of the religion but not religion. Same is with Bible, Quran, Geeta, etc.
Religion means to be engrossed and imbibed in “I” or to know the character of “I” and then live with it; the pleasure obtained from it is religion.
When we reach that level then we will also describe that experience with our “Mat” or understanding. The interesting thing is that there will be no difference between the experience of Geeta, Quran and Bible. We will understand that only the way of describing the divine experience is different. This different way of description becomes different personalities. If we look deeply then we will understand that all these differences are the same which are created by the creator whom we call God.
What is religion?
To know the nature of “I” or to know the characteristic of “I”.
Don’t we have love in us? If we don’t have it inside then nobody can fill us from the outside. Everybody has it but its speed is slow. Why? Because we are traveling towards different subject. Because we are wrong at the first step itself.
This journey of “I” starts with “I” which after traveling in different forms converges into one. All these endless color, shapes, are the potential of “I”. Information, knowledge, familiarity, are all the stages of “I” which tells us how developed our “I” is. We can take any subject, it has a very deep journey.
All this expansion is very vast and very deep topic. Leaving aside everything we will discuss this normal topic. These words which we speak, write, now a days, type are due to this new object whose speed is much faster i.e. technology. Typing is a part of technology. When we start analyzing these words then the depth of these words will take us to our “I”. Jesus said “In the beginning there was Word”. Nanak said “Shabad Guru”, Krishna said ‘’Giyaan Yog’’. What does it mean? Many things have been said. Here I want to say that we can enter into religion by going into the depth of the words because everything has depth weather positive or negative.
Till the time we don’t look into “I”, we don’t recognize “I” we are not living our life. Our life starts with our “I”. When we recognize our “I” world becomes family, world becomes country.
Since childhood we go to religious places, recite religious prayers, but we neither got rid of our pain nor tensions. Why? It is because we all are ailing. Jesus rightly said that one blind is showing path to another blind. That’s why Nanak said that wrong is prevailing everywhere. We all are part of crowd. All are suffering from same disease. Patient is trying to cure patient. Life is not ailing. Our existence is ailing and that’s why our body is suffering. There is no disease in subject “I”, Object is the disease and that is the reason for our suffering in life.
Life is more interested in living than human wants to live life. Our “I” is innocent but is suffering due to our sins; it knows that at the end we will have to go back to “I”. We are subjected to thinking in a way by the object or the way in which we understand family, society or country. The cavalcade of thoughts becomes mature and we call it conscious.
What are thoughts?
Thoughts are our reaction to the visible and invisible expansion of the universe.
Reaction is the effect of visible.
Why is this effect different on every person?
It is because everybody has different level of understanding and perceiving objects.
What is understanding?
To know the characteristic of the things.
What is characteristic?
It is the reason of existence of that thing. There is a mysterious secret in this universe. It has its own discipline and bound by rule and law. The wholeness is the symbol of the law. Everything in existence reveals a rule or law.
If we concentrate then we will come to know that everything is trying to say something. All our circumstances are the result of our understandings.
What are circumstances?
Thoughts have conflict with thoughts; feelings have conflict with feelings, person with person and countries with countries, religion with religion and so on.
How can we come out of this conflict?
With the help of conflict of “I” with “I”, by imbibing the main features of “I”.
How? When “I” becomes object as well as subject. Means we start doing surveillance on ourselves. We have to test ourselves in the laboratory of us. What we think and do, why we think and do it? Where we go, why we go? What will be the positive reason of going and what will be the positive reason of not going? Our question to our inner self will clean our conscious and we will be attached to “I” naturally.
When we will look inside our self we will move closer towards “I”. This will remove our burden and we will feel lighter. We will be enlightened to the fact that burden which we were bearing was of lack of knowledge.
When we become familiar with “I” then we know that we all are one. Feeling of oneness is born only after knowing one. In the same way we can understand the greatness of God after knowing God. Oneness takes the form of similarity where all differences are eradicated. First time we feel life. It feels like everything is born now. From here life starts growing, means the journey of life and not of human starts from here.
Here “I” sees that everything is expanding. It itself is Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Christian. It sees that love is prevailing everywhere and is the same. All this expansion which seems different is depicting the feature and characteristic of that oneness.
We can do one thing here at the place where we are standing. We can look deep into our every thought and every feeling. What do we see? When we pass through this experience then this feeling will introduce us with the Hindu as well as Muslim, Christian as well as Buddhist.
Whenever we go to the depth of thoughts we will be introduced to some scientist or prophet. When we see, while flowing in the feelings, we ourselves will become river or air. The experience of that flow will introduce us to the deep feeling of a saint, a prophet or a sage.
When we know of our habits and know how habits are born then we will become attached to rich and poor. When we know and understand our actions then we can see our merits and shortcomings in everything.
We can see the expansion till the extent we are awaken from inside. If we see and understand the world through “I” then only can we understand “I” as well as the world. If we don’t understand life we cannot be religious. Our one though travels a life time; just like this someone’s feeling or someone’s wish travels a life time and life itself remains unexplored.
What is society?
It is the arrangement of rituals.
What are rituals?
Rituals are the process to make life easy as per time.
Does time remain same every time?
No. Storm comes into calm water. Life should move ahead with time.
What is time?
It is the shadow of “I”.
The way every substance of life undertakes its journey, weather its matter or not; weather its thought or feeling, noise or silence, whatever it may be, it is traveling. Both our likes and dislikes travel. Our likes also have their own level and dimensions. Everything has its own level, dimension and environment. Everything speaks and has habit which we may call rule or discipline. Everything has its own features which we may call its nature or law.
The way “I” is one, religion is one, God is one, similarly universal teacher is also one. It is nature which we see through our open eyes. This teacher is not word but understanding of that word.
Teaching means knowledge, way of doing, a secret, its path in other words, meditation and awareness. Which religion denies this? This is the conclusion of every path and every religion. How can we adopt this natural teacher? We can adopt it through a simple natural process whose first step is meditation and last is silence. When we reach the stage of silence then we are in the adobe of this teacher. Means that the destination is one and same for all weather people are walking on the path of Hinduism, Islam, Jewish or Christianity. Person has to come to the adobe of this master to become Einstein or Moses.
What is nature?
It is very deep form of our life.
It’s a relation where we attach ourselves with nature. Silence has another form also which we call submission. Silence is the characteristic of “I” and submission is the action of silence. When person attains silence, submission itself comes. Silence’s characteristic and submission is knowledge.
What is characteristic?
It is the positive energy of “I” or we can say it is the nature of “I”.
What is knowledge?
It is the understanding of nature of the object.
How can we recognize understanding?
We will be above that topic of life which we have understood. For example 2+2 is thought in first grade. When we know it we are promoted to second standard. To be above means that when the characteristic of the object come to our life in the form of knowledge and if we have the capability to utilize it then it means that we have gained maturity. If not then it means that we have knowledge of that object but not understanding. The knowledge of this understanding will bring happiness, peace, independence and love.
Understanding is like a fuel whose output is peace, happiness and independence. Understanding makes life easier and lighter. All these characteristics and knowledge are nature of our “I”. To understand the nature of “I” we can use another point.
Today we will bring all religions in the court of our life. Here our “I” is judge, our understanding is our advocate and culprit is our thought process. Feelings will be employee and jury consists of all religions. Our characteristics will be our witness.
What is oneness?
The Taste of Love
We will be unique scientist when some new idea or invention takes birth within us.
Our feelings are like flowers, our thoughts are birds, and we fly and breathe in nature. Our breaths are interconnected. Life is a book; it’s a teacher and topic, which share same understanding, truth and destination. It is bounded by same law.
All these endless topics are expansion of one single topic. This endless is not endless. These are characteristics of endless whose conclusion is one. Call it Khuda, Bhagwaan, Waheguru, God, Allah, Rabb, who travels with “I”, within its infinity, lights one.