DEPENDENCE ON GOD Part 1

Sakhi:

"Mera mujh me kuchh nahi, jo kuchh hai so tor;
Tera tujh ko sowmp de, kya lage hai mor"

(There is nothing of mine in me; whatever is, is yours;
If I surrender to you what is yours, what loss is it to me?)

In this sakhi there is the assumption that there are two entities, one speaking to the other. But, in fact, there is the soul, talking to the soul. There are no two eternal beings; there is only one. And this has been proven in the Vedanta philosophy that when the soul realizes its own nature, it finds itself united with God. That is why Kabir Saheb has said:  prem jagawe biraha ko, biraha jagawe piw; piw jaghawe jiw ko, wahi piw wahi jiw. (Love awakens the heart of the separated lover, the soul, and that love awakens the beloved, God; God then awakens the soul, which realizes that the soul and God are one). What difference is there when the soul is awakened?  And to be awakened means a realization of one's true nature, and that true nature is not different from the nature of God, for in spirit, soul and God are one. That is the teaching of realized Masters. Therefore the burden is on us to develop in such a way that we come to this realization.  

We really are dependent on God. Without God we cannot have any existence. It is often explained that the waves cannot exist without the ocean. The rays of the sun cannot exist, without the sun. Just so, we cannot exist without God. There could be no material manifestation in the whole universe without God. We are all, therefore, only manifestations or projections from that one Eternal Being. Since we cannot have a separate existence from God, how can we live independently of Him? If you are a deep-sea diver, and your oxygen supply is cut off, can you live separately? You will certainly die under the water. Just so, God can be thought of as our lifeline. God is the soul within that life force, that prana, permeates our whole being and that is what gives us life, consciousness, intelligence, mind, the sense organs, and the physical body. 

When we think that we can live separately from God, we are fooling ourselves. We display an ego, of self-independence. But whenever we do so, we are acting out of ignorance. Just as a little child is dependent on the parents for everything, just so, we are dependent on God for everything. It is very simple to see that we did not bring anything into the world. The world existed before we were born, even before our parents and fore-parents were born. God has supplied everything. At birth nobody came with food, water, sunshine, etc., but we came and met everything. If we can think back to the very first people on earth, even they did not bring anything into the world. They came and met everything in nature. So who is the supplier?  That is why it is correct to say:  Mere mujh me kuchh nahi, jo kuchh hai so tor (I have nothing of my own; whatever I have is yours). The soul will depart. I have no control over birth and death, where I will be born, or who will be my parents, or how I will live. We have our parents, culture, the geographical place, etc. These things are "handed down" to us. 

When we come to the end of this life, can we have control to say: I do not want to die. If we cannot prevent the death of this body, then what control do we have?  What can we call our own? Even through this life many things are happening over which we have no control. We have no control over natural disasters in various countries that kill many thousands of people. The disasters are controlled by nature. And who controls nature?  Isn't it God?  But if we think that God is sitting there like a big controller - a king, and controlling everything, then that is not the correct conception. God is in all of these forces of nature and He is in all of us. So how do we know God? Kabir Saheb said God has no place, no size, no dimension, no form, and yet He is in every ghat (heart). It is understood that all things came from God, because we cannot conceive of any existence, whether material or non-material; whether living or non-living, coming outside of God. That is why God is said to be Omnipresent, Omniscient and Omnipotent.

We want to do things to satisfy ourselves but we sing jahi vidhi rakhe saheb, tahi vidhi rahiye (However it pleases God to keep us, let us be contented and live according to His will). But what happens in life? We are selfish. We think that we have our separate existence. We have our passions, ego, self-identity, greed, anger and attachments, and we count ourselves separate from other people, from other religions, from other cultures, other races and other castes. Are we not doing all of these things through foolishness and ignorance?  Kabir Saheb has instructed us to rise above all of this ignorance (avidya); rise above maya (the illusion) that keeps us fooled, and intoxicated with all these pettiness. Kabir Saheb said to do deep meditation and to realize that you are none of these things. You are not the body, the family, and an individual in any particular society, but you are a universal citizen in God's kingdom. Of course, our governments have drawn boundaries and they have their immigration laws, so we are confined, from a human point of view, to our country, to our law, to our culture, to our religion, etc. But is God limited to any country, to any religion, to any culture, to any race, to any caste?  If you think correctly, God is not limited to any of them, and yet all of these things exist because of the power of God. 

To be continued

Written by: Dr. Jagessar Das