In Sikh literature, the Gurus identify individuals in two broad categories. The Manmukhs or those whose faces are turned towards the mind and the Gurmukhs, those whose faces are turned toward the Sat Guru or the True Master. These two personality traits are said to govern how individuals live their lives and how joyous, content and balanced they are.
Another way of looking at this would be that Manmukhs are usually governed or effected more by the vagaries and modulations of the mind, the thinking brain. Gurmukhs, on the other hand mostly believe in the true nature of things and their faith is more in the messages of their Gurus not in their mind which can be easily influenced by people around them. While some people will try to distinguish Gurmukhs and Manmukhs based on those that do a lot of prayer/charity and those that don’t, I make no such distinction. In my short life, I have come across individuals that while on the outset would seem extremely pious but from the inside they may have a lot of garbage, that spills out once in a while if something bad happens or their buttons are pushed. At the same time, I have met a lot of people, mostly younger people, that from the outside will seem the biggest “sinners” who enjoy the physical things in life, but they have the very pure hearts, that always think the best for others.
For me being a Manmukh involved being governed by the inner workings of my mind. I’m told that I have a thinking mind, but for majority of my life, it has mostly been a curse. While I could quickly make connection between things and people, remember a lot of information and analyze/observe occurrences, sometimes this would go into extremes. Whenever I wanted to do something, either I would obsess over what people would think or say. Also, when I had done or said something, I would obsess over what people thought and what they might say to other people. To the point, that what people of thought of me became the biggest obsession of my ego and haume or self-conceit would torment me whenever it was hurt. There were times where the train of thoughts and workings of my mind became so strong that I would go into depression, become aloof from my surroundings. Other times, it would bring out the worst forms of anger, irritation and arrogance that would burn anything in its path, regardless of whether that individual was remotely connected to what was tormenting me.
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| "Where there is much light, the shadow is deep" - Photo by Shekhar |
There would also be times, where I would meet kindred spirits that saw my state, and whether for pity or genuine love tried to move me away from my mind's control. There were times where I went through intense meditations and prayer that cleared up a lot of garbage, but invariably I would lose touch with the practice and the viscous cycle would begin again. I was always spiritually inclined, as read a lot of books on philosophy, nature of humans and religion. I loved talking and sometime even giving “gyan” or knowledge to other people :) . Sometimes, this was out of my ego but mostly out of genuine care and love for my friends and family. However, I realized that before all of that, I really needed to understand who I was, how my mind works, what is it that makes it tick or happy.
A friend of mine once said, what other people think of you is their business, what you think of yourself is your business. So if you want to be successful, think about only your business. There are a lot of places in Gurbani and teachings of masters from varied faiths that say similar things, but I won’t quote them here. The simple fact that I have come to realize is that all meditation, yoga, prayer, reading of scriptures and all kinds of visual, written or performing arts is geared towards understanding and observing ones own nature. When it is said that one is “self-realized” or “self-aware” in my opinion all that is meant is that they have figured out their true nature. Those individuals have worked long and hard, peeling each layer of the onion and feeling the pain as that happens. They kept going deeper and deeper, without fear or vindictiveness, with unconditional love for themselves and everyone around them.
Then a state arises where there is nothing left to peel, the onion is out there in the open for everyone to see and experience. Some people will run away from its stench and then others while being overawed by it for a while, will stay, for they will relate to some of those feelings. When there erupts the true emotions of love for entire existence, when an individual moves towards the true light within each, becomes a Gurmukh, the profound enigma starts unfolding. However, it’s not in the sense of “Yes, I understand on how things work”, it’s the opposite. Imagine you are watching a movie and slowly you start to understand the main plot and then you realize that the main plot has infinite number of sub-plots woven into it. All you can do is to stand there awed by the director’s superb mind and ability to pull it off, while you feel extreme elation and appreciation for seeing and experiencing that movie.