Osho on Nanak

 

 

The founder of Sikhism, Nanak, was one of those beautiful people for whom I have immense love. He was a simple man. He had just one disciple, and that too because he loved to sing. All his teachings were delivered in singing, spontaneous singing -- not like a poet composing -- and his disciple would play on a simple instrument just to give some music to what the Master was saying.

 

Nanak traveled -- he is the only Indian teacher who traveled outside India too. Mahavira and Buddha never went outside their state, Bihar, not even all over India. Shankara went all over India but not beyond India's boundaries. Nanak is the only exception; he went to Arabia. He reached Mecca, where the sacred shrine of the Mohammedans is, the black stone, Kaaba.

 

The stone is rare. Scientifically, it is a very big stone, perhaps fallen from some star or planet; it is not of the earth.

 

Almost every day, twenty-four hours a day, thousands of stones fall. In the night when you see one and you say, "A star is falling," it is not a star; it is just a stone that was floating in the vacuum around the earth and suddenly comes into the gravitational field of the earth, and then the earth pulls it down. Thousands of stones fall every day, sometimes very big stones.

 

This stone, in Kaaba, is perhaps the biggest that has fallen. It is not of the earth -- that much has been scientifically determined -- that is, it is a meteorite. And how are meteorites created? They are created when a star dies or a planet dies and falls into fragments. For millions of years those fragments may go on and on moving in the vacuum till they come to some gravity field; then they are just pulled downwards. The pull is so tremendous that the falling stone and the air struggle against each other so the stone burns up. It is just the forced entry the stone makes in the air that makes it burn.

 

You see those "stars" falling; those are not stars, stars are very big. If a star falls onto the earth, the earth is finished! Our sun is a star. It is sixty thousand times bigger than this earth; and it is a very mediocre star -- there are stars millions of times bigger than our sun. Our earth is a very small place.

 

Nanak reached Kaaba. Mohammedans could not believe it because they could see that he was a great teacher, but when night came he slept, keeping his feet towards the Kaaba. That is very disrespectful. The keepers came and said to him, "You being a great teacher, this behavior seems to be very unlikely. You come from India where people know how to be respectful, and yet you are keeping your feet towards our sacred stone? You are hurting our feelings. To us this stone represents God, to us this stone IS God; so please turn your feet in the opposite direction."

 

Nanak said, "I knew you would come, hence my feet are towards the Kaaba. Now you want me to turn them in the opposite direction?" They said yes. Nanak said, "You do that -- but remember, YOUR God may be just confined to this stone, MY God is not so confined. Wherever you move my feet He is there."

 

The story -- which must be just a story -- is that they moved his feet, but wherever they moved his feet the Kaaba moved. This must be a story because stones, even if they have fallen from the sky, are after all stones. And man hasn't that much sensitivity: you can't expect from a stone that it will move.

 

But the story is beautiful. It simply says that wherever you are, if you are full of awareness and devotion the temple is there, the shrine is there. In fact your overflowing love creates a shrine around you. You move with it wherever you go.

-Osho, "From Personality to Individuality, #11"

 

 

 

 

It was a dark moonless night; the clouds were heavy with rain because it was the monsoon season. Suddenly thunder sounded and lightning flashed as a few rain drops started to fall. The village was asleep. Only Nanak was awake and the echo of his song filled the air.

 

Nanak's mother was worried because the night was more than half over and the lamp in his room was still burning. She could hear his voice as he sang. She could restrain herself no longer and knocked at his door, "Go to sleep now, my son. Soon it will be dawn." Nanak became silent. From the darkness sounded the call of the sparrowhawk. "Piyu, piyu, piyu!" it called.

 

"Listen, mother!" Nanak called out. "The sparrowhawk is calling to his beloved; how can I be silent, because I am competing with him? I will call my beloved as long as he calls his -- even longer, because his beloved is nearby, perhaps in the next tree! My beloved is so far away. I will have to sing for lives upon lives before my voice reaches him." Nanak resumed his song.

 

Nanak attained God by singing to him; Nanak's quest is very unusual -- his path was decorated with songs. The first thing to be realized is that Nanak practiced no austerities or meditation or yoga; he only sang, and singing, he arrived. He sang with all his heart and soul, so much so that his singing became meditation; his singing became his purification and his yoga.

 

Whenever a person performs any act with all his heart and soul, that act becomes the path. Endless meditation, if halfhearted, will take you nowhere; whereas just singing a simple song with all your being merged in it, or dance a dance with the same total absorption and you will reach God. The question is not what you do, but how much of yourself you involved in the act.

 

Nanak's path to supreme realization, to godliness is scattered with song and flowers. Whatever he has said was said in verse. His path was full of melody and soft, filled with the flavor of ambrosia.

 

Kabir says: "My enchanted mind was so intoxicated that it drained the filled cup without caring to measure the quantity." So it was with Nanak: he drank without caring how much he drank; then he sang, and sang, and sang. And his songs are not those of an ordinary singer. They have sprung from within one who had known. There is the ring of truth, the reflection of God within them.

 

Now another thing about the japuji. The moonless night described at the beginning was an incident from Nanak's life when he was about sixteen or seventeen years of age. When the Japuji was conceived, Nanak was thirty years, six months and fifteen days old. The first incident refers to the days when he was still a seeker in quest of the beloved. The call to the beloved, the refrain, "Piyu, Piyu, Piyu ..." was still the sparrowhawk calling; he had not yet met the beloved.

 

The Japuji was his first proclamation after the union with the beloved. The sparrowhawk had found his beloved; the call of "Piyu, Piyu," was now over. The Japuji are the very first words uttered by Nanak after self-realization; therefore they hold a very special place in the sayings of Nanak. They are the latest news brought back from the kingdom of heaven.

 

The incident preceding the birth of the Japuji needs to be understood also. Nanak sat on the bank of the river in total darkness with his friend and follower, Mardana. Suddenly, without saying a word, he removed his clothes and walked into the river. Mardana called after him, "Where are you going? The night is so dark and cold!" Nanak went further and further; he plunged into the depths of the river. Mardana waited, thinking he would be out soon, but Nanak did not return.

 

Mardana waited for five minutes; when ten minutes had passed he became anxious. Where could he be? There was no sign of him. Mardana began to run along the shore calling to him, "Where are you? Answer me! Where are you?" He felt he heard a voice saying, "Be patient, be patient!" but there was no sign of Nanak.

 

Mardana ran back to the village and woke up everyone. It was the middle of the night, but a crowd collected at the riverside because everyone in the village loved Nanak. They all had some sense, a glimpse, of what Nanak was going to be. They had felt the fragrance of his presence, just as the bud gives off its fragrance before the flower has opened. All the village wept. They ran back and forth the whole length of the river bank but to no avail.

 

Three days passed. By now it was certain that Nanak had drowned. The people imagined that his body must have been carried away by the swift current and perhaps eaten by wild animals. The village was drowned in sorrow. Though everyone thought him dead, on the third night Nanak appeared from the river. The first words he spoke became the Japuji.

 

So goes the story -- and a story means that which is true and yet not true. It is true because it gives the essential truth; it is false in the sense that it is only symbolic. And it is evident that the more profound the subject matter, the greater the need for symbols.

 

When Nanak disappeared in the river, the story goes that he stood before the gate of God. He experienced God. There before his eyes stood the beloved he pined for, for whom he sang night and day. He who had become the thirst of his every heartbeat stood revealed before Nanak! All his desires were fulfilled. Then God spoke to him, "Now go back and give unto others what I have given unto you." The Japuji is Nanak's first offering after he returned from God.

 

Now, this is a story; what it symbolizes must be understood. First, unless you lose yourself completely, until you die, you cannot hope to meet God. Whether you lose yourself in a river or on a mountaintop is of little consequence; but you must die. Your annihilation becomes his being. As long as you are, he cannot be. You are the obstacle, the wall that separates you. This is the symbolic meaning of drowning in the river.

 

You too will have to lose yourself; you too will have to drown. Death is only completed after three days, because the ego does not give up easily. The three days in Nanak's story represent the time required for his ego to dissolve completely. Since the people could only see the ego and not the soul, they thought Nanak was dead.

 

Whenever a person becomes a sannyasin and sets out on the quest for God, the family members understand and give him up for dead. Now he is no longer the same person; the old links are broken, the past is no more, and the new has dawned. Between the old and the new is a vast gap; hence this symbol of three days before Nanak's reappearance.

 

The one who is lost invariably returns, but he returns as new. He who treads the path most certainly returns. While he was on the path he was thirsty, but when he returns he is a benefactor; he has left a beggar, he returns a king. Whoever follows the path carries his begging bowl; when he comes back he possesses infinite treasures.

 

The Japuji is the first gift from Nanak to the world.

 

To appear before God, to attain the beloved, are purely symbolic terms and not to be taken literally. There is no God sitting somewhere on high before whom you appear. But to speak of it, how else can it be expressed? When the ego is eradicated, when you disappear, whatever is before your eyes, is God himself. God is not a person -- God is an energy beyond form.

 

To stand before this formless energy means to see Him wherever you look, whatever you see. When the eyes open, everything is He. It only requires that you should cease to be and that your eyes be opened. Ego is like the mote in your eye; the minute it is removed, God stands revealed before you. And no sooner does God manifest, than you also become God, because there is nothing besides Him.

 

Nanak returned, but the Nanak who returned was also God Himself. Then each word uttered became so invaluable as to be beyond price, each word equal to the words of the Vedas.

-Osho, "The True Name, Vol 1, #1"

 

 

 

Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, his songs. He roamed around the known world of his day with a single follower, Mardana. Mardana means manly -- 'the really brave'. To be a follower one has to be brave. Nanak used to sing while Mardana played on his sitar, and that's how they roamed around the world spreading the fragrance of the ultimate. His songs are so beautiful, they bring tears to my eyes. Just because of his songs a new language was created. Because he wouldn't listen to any grammar, any rules of language, regulations, he created Punjabi just by his songs. It is a tremendously strong language, just like the sharp edge of a sword.

-Osho, "Books I Have Loved, #5"

 

 

 

GURU GRANTHA has compiled the sayings of ten living masters, ten enlightened ones. I say that no other book can be compared to it. It is incomparable. Nanak says, "Ek omkar satnam -- only one thing is true, the name of the inexpressible." In the East we call it omkar, om -- only that is true. The sound of the soundless... the silence that pervades after the sound has left...ek omkar satnam.

-Osho, "Books I Have Loved, #7"

 

 

 

 

There is a story about Nanak, a great mystic, who founded the religion of Sikhism. He traveled far and wide. And he was more generous in his attitude; he allowed anyone who wanted, to be in his world. Even Mohammedans entered it, Hindus entered it; all kinds of people from different religions became part of it. The man had tremendous charisma.

 

He went to the holy place of Mohammedans, the Kaaba. It is said that every Mohammedan at least once in his life should go to visit the Kaaba; otherwise he has missed something tremendously important. And even poor Mohammedans go on collecting money -- they will starve, but they will collect money. They will sell their houses, their lands, and will go on a pilgrimage to the Kaaba. And they are given tremendous respect for it, those who go to the Kaaba.

 

The pilgrimage is called hajj, going to the source. It was at the Kaaba that Mohammed first proclaimed the basic elements of his religion. And the person who goes and comes back is given the title hajji, which is just like `holy'.

 

There was no need for Nanak to go to the Kaaba -- he was not a Mohammedan. But he never considered himself as Hindu or confined to any religion. Millions of people go to the Kaaba, and Nanak thought it would be a good place to go, to see and meet millions of people.

 

He went to the Kaaba. It was a long journey, and when they reached, it was getting dark, the sun had set, and they were so tired that he told his companion, Mardana.... That was a beautiful combination. The disciple, Mardana, was a great musician, a genius, and Nanak would sing -- his teachings are all songs -- and Mardana would play on his instruments. And the company of two had become famous. Mardana was Mohammedan. The master was Hindu, the disciple was Mohammedan, but there was such a meeting between the two, that nobody was a Hindu and nobody was a Mohammedan.

 

Nanak told Mardana, "First we should rest tonight. Tomorrow we will start moving amongst the people."

 

And as he was going to sleep, Mardana said, "Master, you are doing something wrong. You are lying with your feet towards the Kaaba. That is never done."

 

Nanak said, "But do you think Nanak comes every day to the Kaaba? That too is never done, will never be done again. So don't be worried, just follow what I am doing."

 

Poor Mardana, he was a Mohammedan, he knew that this was absolutely wrong, but if the master was doing it.... He also slept putting his feet towards the Kaaba, just outside the Kaaba temple.

 

Somebody saw them, informed the high priest, and the high priest came with guards. They woke up Nanak and Mardana and told Nanak, "We had heard that you are a holy man. What kind of holy man are you? You don't understand a simple thing -- that the Kaaba is the holiest place in the world -- and you are lying with your feet towards the Kaaba."

 

Nanak said, "I was told by Mardana -- he is my disciple -- that it is the holiest place. But my difficulty is, wherever I put my feet I find the place holiest. It is not the place, it is my feet which makes every place so holy. And if you are skeptical, you can try; you can turn my feet wherever you want."

 

Up to this point I see that this is history; beyond this it is a metaphor -- but significant, meaningful, completing what history cannot complete. The priest turned Nanak's feet in every direction, and they were amazed that the Kaaba turned to exactly where Nanak's feet were turned. They went all round turning him, and Mardana could not believe it. Nanak was laughing and saying, "Do your best, don't leave out any place -- because this is my problem: where should I keep my feet? Every place is holy, the whole existence is divine."

 

The priest touched the feet of Nanak and said, "Please forgive me. People have come here, but none was like you. We have never seen the Kaaba moving wherever someone's feet are moved. Why did you come here?"

 

Nanak said, "Just to show you that it is not the Kaaba that is holy. Unless your feet are holy, nothing is holy. Worshipping a stone you think you are worshipping something holy."

-Osho, "The Transmission of the Lamp, #28"