Los Angeles 10/1/1987
Dhan Dhan Ram Das Guru, Ra, Ma, Das, Sa, Ra who created the sun, Ma who created the moon, Da the doubt, Sa the totality. There are four Nad Karam in one name, there are twenty words which can raise the consciousness from zero to infinity in the mortal. Sa Re Ga Ma, Pa Da Ni, Sa Ta Na Ma, Ra Ma Das Sa, Sa Se So Hung. This is the totality, this is called Gauri Kriya. Guru Arjan gave to the Sikhs, Sikhs became musicians, Sikhs became poets, Sikhs became knowledgeable.
In these twenty words, when you breathe in one breath, and go to the notes and the tune, the entire harmony of the universes come to you as a gift. There is nothing more harmonious, creative tranquilizer, peaceful objective sound current. Today sound current is being sold in the market, you know people come and learn from the sound current. They do not know basic sound current.
Guru Arjan Partakh Har gave the Sikhs the sound current when it was challenged. When it was challenged without our music, without our recitation, you won't have the public, you won't have the audience, what kind of Guru you are? Sikh Dharma does teach you self sufficiency. Without self sufficiency there is deficiency and there is no efficiency and it is a very simple thing. If you are dependent on somebody, even in a dream, you can't make it, God knows what can happen to you. Efficiency in self sufficiency and minus deficiency, that is what Sikh Dharma is.
The technology which has come to us has not come to us like a ritualistic situation, well I am a Sikh, therefore Sunday I go to the Gurudwara, twenty minutes I have to listen to the tape recorder in the car, its all right. Sant Ji has come and blessed my house, it is all right. I gave one thousand dollars to the Gurudwara, it is all right, this doesn't mean a thing. This is not a Sikh. This is a hungry man trying to satisfy to be a Sikh. A Sikh man trying to do rituals to become a Sikh. Giving high slogans, and blaming and claiming things doesn't make a Sikh. A Sant doesn't become a Sikh. A Yogi doesn't become a Sikh. A Brahm Giani doesn't become a Sikh. Nobody knows what a Sikh is. Sikh is the one who sought out all the infinity of the God and still says I am humble, I am willing to serve. Who has experience of God, who doesn't love God, God loves him, and still says I am nothing. That is where Sikh starts, I'm not telling you yet the finish. I'm telling you where a sikh starts. Everybody who today ties a turban and puts a little Kirpan around and puts a little kara, and knows few words of the Punjabi, and two or three sloks here, two, three sloks there, and says there is no better Sikh than me. It is an American saying, everybody is a chief, nobody is an indian.
Among Sikhs there is a tragedy. They found the technology of spirituality and they have drowned themselves in the ocean of ego. That is what Sikhism is today.
There is a little story of a Sikh. A very old Sikh who was initiated by Guru Nanak, came to meet Guru Ram Das at Amritsar. Guru Ram Das had left the body and the light has passed to Guru Arjan. So he learned that now Guru Arjan is on the throne. So he said, where he is? They told him that there is a place, Guru Arjan you can have the darshan there, the audience there. He sits there he said, ok. So he walked and went there. Guru Arjan Dev at that time was compiling and completing the Sukhmani. He arrived, did the prayers, Guru Arjan Dev got up from the throne, went out, lifted him, touched his feet, kissed his forehead, hugged him, and brought him by his side. The Sikh said, Guru, look at the difference of the age, look at the difference of the karni, look at the difference of the whole thing. He said, Guru, what's going on. And Guru said, you are from Nanak, you are from Angad, you are from Guru Amar Das, you are from Guru Ram Das. Blessed is me. This is Guru Arjan saying blessed is me that I have your darshan, I have your audience, blessed is me. Happy is me, holy is me, Guru is saying this. Sikh is surprised. He said I see you as Nanak, I see you as Angad, I see you as Guru Amar Das, I see you as Ram Das, I see you as Guru Arjan, I see you as Guru Hargobind. At that time Guru Hargobind was not conceived. Sikh started saying the names of all the Gurus. He said I see you the beginning, I see you the end, I see you complete, bless me. Guru Arjan says, please, wait, let me look at you. Let me see you, let me touch your feet, let me touch the dust of the feet where you have walked. The entire audience was surprised because Guru Arjan saw a Sikh of the Guru whom God loves, in whom God dwells, on whose altar there is no alternative, but on the altar God presides himself. Guru Arjan Partak Har, the personified God saw God in devotion in the light of a sikh.
Today is the birthday of Guru Ram Das. The foundation of the Khalsa has been laid. In the foundation of the Khalsa, two sons of Guru Gobind Singh in body are there. In the walls of this Khalsa, there are two sons of Guru Gobind Singh, innocents are there, alive and well. Pure and alive forever. Martyr never dies. Their martyrdom reminds us that on their blood and flesh the foundation of Khalsa was laid. The two fought with the entire animosity from dawn to dusk defending the origination of the Khalsa. Five who gave their head and took the amrit become so pure, so noble, so graceful, that Guru Gobind Rai, the tenth Guru of the Sikhs, bowed down and asked for the same amrit which he gave. Creator become creation.
Let us put it in scientific words. Millennium, conscious act of creativity of God is united in this unison-ness of the light. The spectrum of light views the light itself to the multiness of the total creativity. In that unisonness and that creativity came the light and the creative light meditated for thousands and thousands and thousands of human years, and God went into bliss and consciousness, so It could just create one of its own kind.
Looking at the entire creation, he looked at Rishi Dush Daman, ask him to take rebirth. Thus, the birth of Gobind Rai got promised in the kingdom of God. This is one birth in recorded spiritual identity, which was asked not but requested by God himself, to a living being. To recreate itself to start the Dharma. Believe me or not, I'm asking you phonies, when such a Dharma can be destroyed, and who can destroy it? In the weakness of the moment, you may forget, in prosperity we make friends, in adversity we test them. In this eventual adversity through which this Panth is going, we may get shaken.
It is not the body which lives, it is the spirit in the body lives. Baba Deep Singh, 72 years old, got beheaded, Sikh reminded him, Jathedar Sir, you promised, your head would fall in the parkarma of the golden temple, dead body got up, put the hand on the left side, took the kanda in the right side, enemy started running. They couldn't take this, even you, with a tank before you, if you see a man with a head on his hand, and coming with a sword, you will turn the tank around, you can't believe it. The mogul army couldn't believe it, they didn't have the strength, 250 people total in number defeated the army of 5,000, they ran to Lahore. Couldn't relate to it. The governor said, "what?" They said, "what?" "What, what, what?" he said, "what are you talking about?" "We saw something we can't believe. The huge man, the old man got up, put his head on his hand, started mauling the army of us, we could only think, "best is to run." Spirit lives, body doesn't. Man doesn't live. It isn't the life that matters, it's the courage you bring to it.
It is the courage of the spirit in the faith, in the unison-ness which lives. Sikh has a unison-ness with the Guru, and God has unison-ness with the Sikh. You don't understand Sikhism. Sikh Dharma, Sikh way of life, you have been so much engulfed in Brahminism, you can't understand what Guru says. Gursikh loves the Guru, God loves the Sikh. This is the relationship. Sikh doesn't love the God. Sikh even doesn't care, because he knows God is presiding in him! God's Sikh, if you are a Sikh, you know that there are ten trillion cells, and three parts to each one. Thirty trillion times God lives in you. If you do not know that, you should not call yourself a Sikh. Then you have no right to say, "Ang Sang Waheguru!" God is within me, in each limb of me. You declare it. You learn it, and you personify it. That spectrum of light, the creativity, is that Raj Yog for which throne was given to Guru Ram Das.
There are a lot of Takhats, they made another Takhat at Guru Biconchi, and they said it is a Panth decision. I said, where Takhat of Raj Yog, given to Guru Ram Das, has to appear? Of that Siri Guru Granth speaks. This takhat which you have created, we have no objection to it, but it is a political Takhat. "No, no, no, Amritsar is the place of Guru Ram Das." I said there is Akal Takhat already. Yogi Ji, are you doubting the Panth's decision? I said yes, I am not doubting it, I am seeing it.
Guru Arjan was the architect of this Guru's house, Guru Harimander Sahib, you have put this additional wood, you are the architect? There are a lot of Sikhs who come, I said, Guru did not estimate how many Sikhs are going to come. You have a better brain, better estimation? No, no, we have done nothing, we have just taken those little square corners and we are just baited. I said magnetic psyche doesn't need alteration. Harimander is the house of God, it doesn't need alterations. You cannot play with it. You do not understand, therefore you do not understand it. To you it is a bricks, one brick gone, the other brick has come. I'll tell you how powerful that brick is.
That little brick you see, (note: a piece of a brick of the Akal Takhat is near the door at Guru Ram Das Ashram) that is the pillar of Akal Takhat. That is the marble from the first pillar of Akal Takhat. All right, as a memory, we put it in the House of Guru Ram Das. Now, there is a lot of marble in this house, you see all that? Now somebody came and he put Guru Nanak on it, somebody came, he put those beautiful saropas around, now I am seeing something golden around it, do you understand what a stone can do? It is a stone. It is very surprising.
One day Baba Karak Singh took a marble stone which is in this Guru Ram Das Ashram, (Note: there are two pieces of marble inlaid in the entry way to the Gurudwara at Guru Ram Das Ashram in Los Angeles) and he gave it to me. I said, thank you very much. He said, no, no, no, understand Yogi, understand this. We never had a proposal to build marble here anything, we never thought of it.
He said that place of Guru Ram Das that you have in America, when you marble it, put this marble at the gate. This is a marble from the Kar Seva, when we did it we got it out of the sarovar, so I'm giving you this brick. I brought it and I kept it. I never knew that we had to do this. When it is done, I brought that brick, I said somebody who could see in the future has given it, it is our responsibility to put it where he said to put it.
That is a Sikh, who sees the unseen, knows the unknown, hears the unheard, and still says "Dhan, Dhan, Ram Das Guru, Jin Siri Tinai Savaria, Poori Hoe Kara Mat, Aap Sirjan Harey Dharia". That is the beginning, that is the start. The ownership of the God, is first step of Sikh Dharma.
There is no fight, there is no philosophy, there is no technology, there is no experience. There are two words which can decide the entire categorization of this Dharma. Nitnem, Nimet. Nitnem, daily. Nimita, for the sake of. If Sikh lives for the sake of the Guru, God serves such a Sikh. If Sikh lives his daily life, how pure it is, it has nothing to do with the dictates of the Sikh Dharma. When a Sikh claims, "I", then Dharma is dead in him, Karma lives. By virtue of the expression, physical, mental, and spiritual, Sikh doesn't live. Therefore Sikh cannot die. One who lives in the spirit and the being of the Guru, and Guru which manifests the very existent acknowledged capacity and the psyche of the God, where does death fit in, in this whole episode, tell me?
Those who are limited do not understand the foundation and the tenets of Sikh Dharma. If I started asking these questions, let me tell you on the birthday of Guru Ram Das, not only we shall live, but we shall rule every millimeter square of this planet earth. It is destined. It is destined. It shall not be untrue. You who are Christians, or know Christianity, go a few thousand years backward and search Christianity, and being Christian find it out for yourself. Where did you ever have a dream that the Christian flag will fly at the graveyard of the sacrificed place of Peter? At that time when they put him on the cross upside down, did anybody know at that time that Christianity would spread all over? Those who know Judaism and know the Jews, I'm asking you, go a couple thousand years backward, find out Moses releasing the slaves from Egypt, and think of that situation.
Today the Jews have Israel in the face of opposition from the entire Moslem world. Could you imagine it? No you couldn't. Would the Hindus of India ever have dreamt that they would be free thanks to Guru Gobind Singh? Psychologically, a nation's character has the constitutional excellence in it, or excellence of sovereignty in it, or excellence of service in it, or excellence of it, and excellence of self destruction in it. There are three types of nations created by the will of God. Wherever you will find a Sikh, with all his millions of weaknesses, you will find him in excellence of consciousness when he challenges himself to be a Sikh. It comes automatically. It doesn't come through rituals, it doesn't come through rites, it doesn't come through sacrifices, it doesn't come through knowledge, it doesn't come through blessings, it doesn't come through grace, it doesn't come through anything.
It comes only from the first step of self-consciousness, when a Sikh challenges himself to become a Sikh, he becomes acknowledged and the wisest and the most conscious and purest of all. You who do not understand things do not want to be human, should not be human, you should not live as human. Because a human has a God's light in itself, and wherever one challenges that very light, it brightens up. Whenever an individual creates a vacuum, the very weak light becomes the bright light. It is the self challenge. It is the self-intellectual consciousness which is challenged by a man, by his own grace.
Guru gives the way, when dedication of self is given to the Guru, challenge is automatic. That is the technique. Give me any man among you who's secure enough to say "all is of the Guru. All shall be of the Guru, and all losses are gained through the Guru." Me and myself to the Guru, day and night to the Guru, and may Guru Ram Das be blessed forever. After you do that tell me what is your problem? A lot of people came here. They were wiser, they were more knowledgeable, they were better, they claimed better. They could not reach the heart of the American mind because the target in America was not that Americans were seeking a religion. Americans had a religion, and very strong religion, and in every American home, for hours and hours, the television bombards religion.
TV does not bombard in a literally suggestive way, it preys on the guilt, the consciousness, the conception from the very birth day to the death day and it condemns you to hell, to heaven, the promises are not so much. Modern technology is used so that people sitting in their homes write checks and mail them first hing in the morning to just as the sun rises. In that bombarded technology, methodology, and that religion, there are people who have adopted to become the Sikhs. That religion is going to be in danger? If you cannot read the words on the wall, how blind you can be?
Today I say to you on this birthday of Guru Ram Das, if a Sikh belongs to the Guru, that is between him and his Guru. Nobody can make anybody a Sikh. One can be helped along. Everybody has to walk his journey, only the friendly talk and make it easy, the time can pass. None of you who is sitting here, or anywhere, is a Sikh because somebody could make you a Sikh. No! Nobody could make anybody Khalsa. Rishi Dusht Daman, who was one with God, God asked him to become Guru Gobind Rai, and when he was born and started as Guru Gobind Rai, he had to ask the Khalsa to give the amrit. Don't you understand the history? It couldn't have been any other way.
Therefore, some of you who will never understand, some of you who understand, will not be in a position to explain. Just understand, it is the karam, it is the Sisganj, which has awakened among you, and you have accepted the Guru. "Dhan Dhan Ram Das Guru, Jin Siri Tinai Savariaa, Poori Hoee Karaa Maat". That miracle is complete. You have completed a miracle. I am taking this opportunity to explain to you, nothing should bother you, because in the words of Guru Gobind Singh: "The people have forgotten the reality, they have become ritualistic.
Half of the world has denied God, half the world believes in God but does not trust God. To become spiritual without trust is much worse than the atheist. Atheist at least fully denies God, he's the other side of the coin. What is the idea to believe in God and don't trust him? What is the idea to be a Sikh who does not belong completely to the Guru? There is a technology which we have asked for. Right from the House of Guru Nanak, unto the House of Guru Gobind Singh, and through the Siri Guru Granth we got it. My saying to you is, if this comes true that next year physically I'll not sit with you, and you will celebrate the birthday of Guru Ram Das without me, let everyone know in very clear terms that you are a Khalsa by your right! That Siri Guru Granth is your Guru, that Khalsa Council is your governing body, and you are well, healthy, happy, and holy!
Dharma is not the creation of a man. Akal Purkh wanted Khalsa to appear, whether it appears in Africa, America, India, Fiji, New Zealand, Japan, it is the will of the God. The coming 5,000 years belongs to it. We may be small now, we may be small tomorrow, but those directed souls which will come will nurture and grow. Some will like to walk like meek saints, some will walk like saint soldiers, strong and powerful, but all this is a maya. The reality is the seed of the Panth Khalsa has been sown, and it shall grow to its infinity. That is the reality. Therefore I wish you the happiest birthday of Guru Ram Das on the western soil of the United States, and remember your plans are very high and heavy, but when you build the Takhat, Raj Yog of Guru Ram Das, at Ram Das Puri, on your selected land, remember one thing, if I do not physically share with you anything at that moment, I share it with you today. Let that place be built to the beauty that there shall be nothing in the world which can even try to equal it. Do not gold plate it. Put solid bricks of gold. Somebody was telling me that soft gold gets taken away, I said, well, blessed are those feet which will take it away. They said, what you will do then? I said, we'll replace it. It is very easy. Build a befitting glory to the throne of Guru Ram Das and the day you shall complete it, that day you and your generations shall rule the planet earth. If it does not come true, wherever my ashes are, spit at it. Therefore worry not, children of the Guru, the time of the Khalsa has begun.
Wahe Guru Ji Ka Khalsa, Wahe Guru Ji Ki Fateh!