The Satguru destroys all illusions - uselessness of ritual reading
Guru Arjun Dev Ji wrote :
They read scriptures (paat pario),
and study the holy books;
they practice the inner cleansing techniques of Yoga,
and control of the breath.
But they cannot escape from the company of the five thieves;
they merely increase their ego. ||1||
O Beloved, this is not the way to meet the Lord;
I have performed these rituals so many times.
I have collapsed, exhausted, at the Door of my Lord Master;
I pray that He may grant me a discerning intellect. ||Pause||
You are so busy in illusion that you have become blind to the Guru’s wisdom (Gurbani) that you are reading daily (paat). You are so busy in the rules and rituals around Guru Granth and the prayer books that you have gone deaf to what you are hearing. When someone dies you pay for a ritual reading to be performed (Akhand Paat). The priest (Giani) then says a prayer asking for the soul of your deceased one to be liberated (mukti). Ritual readings for the dead and the subsequent prayer (ardas) are all false.
Liberation (mukti) of the soul has to happen whilst alive, its too late after death. No-one holds your hand after death if you didn’t become liberated whilst alive. The priests can’t save your lost soul after death with their prayer. You think they can, the system in the Gurdwara makes you believe they can, but they cant. If you didn’t realise the inner Eternal Guru (God) within your heart and mind whilst you were alive, then they can’t make you realise it after your body has died. If you didn’t realise the Truthful origin of you soul whilst alive, then you didn’t know God and you can’t be saved after death by the prayer of a priest and a ritual reading.
When you were in the womb, your soul was in constant remembrance of its Truthful origin. But since birth you have been too busy or too scared to do deeds full of Truth, loving the Truth and serving the Truth. You dont understand what true love is. In love of Truth is everything including liberation of the soul (mukti). If you don’t find the true love inside yourself whilst alive, then you wont realise God, so there is no liberation for your soul. Your Guru is love. You can only understand true love, if you love your Guru. You are only liberated if you devote yourself to loving worship (Bhagti) whilst alive. That is why you cannot buy liberation. You can’t buy love, you have to earn it through your devotion (bhagti). So it is just a big illusion that you can pay a priest to do a ritual reading and say a prayer to liberate the soul after death.
Religion is just preserving cultural traditions, with stories of the past to keep you caught up in the past. It is presented to you as a way to God, but it is actually another illusion. In reality the stories and traditions just get you attached to the past. It is hardening one of your five thieves – MOH – attachment. It is a waste of your life, you are losing the present moment by being attached to the past. It is all lies when the religion tells you that preserving the past tradtition is the way to God, to liberation of your soul. It is all lies, religion is just selling the past and keeping you in illusion.
If you haven’t done truthful deeds in life, then there is no Truth-Guru (Sat Guru) that is going to vouch for you after death. If you have not freed your heart and mind in life, then you can’t be freed from reincarnation after death.
Even the priest that you are paying to pray for you, even he hasn’t had an iota of grace bestowed upon him by God after hundreds of ritual readings. If ritual readings were a good deed, then he would have had been graced to get out of doing any further ritual readings and to do Naam simran (loving remembrance of God’s Name) instead. Ask yourself, “If he is not free, how can his prayer free me, or the soul of my deceased one?”
The One God sitting within you, behind your ego, watching you, didn’t let you do deeds full of Truth, didn’t let you understand true love for the Guru and didn’t make you into his diamond in life, so how can He help you after death? You become His diamond when you know God and have conquored your selfishness.
God is not known through ritual reading. There is no conquoring of the five thieves by doing ritual readings. All that is real is this moment (past has gone, future isn’t here). When you know God in this moment then you know the Truth and that is spirituality. All else is just increasing ego under the illusion of religious rituals being a way to God and liberation of the soul.
Merely reading and hearing Guru’s wisdom (Gurbani) as a ritual has absolutely no power over your mind if you are still full of the five thieves. Ritual readings (akhand paat) are done before weddings. You pay the priest to do it and say the prayer. If it had any power then why are there still divorces? If ritual readings and the priests prayer had power, then the five thieves would have been conquored in the couple’s minds and the root cause of divorce would have been eliminated.
In ego of ritual readings and attachment to past stories, you get offended when these illusions are exposed. But, be honest and ask yourself, “Have I wasted my life? Did my deeds have Truth in them?”
Ask yourself these questions while you are still alive, because this what is going to be asked of you after your body dies. Your level of spirituality is directly related to your truthful deeds and not at all to the number of ritual readings you have done.
Only Satnaam helps you in all phases of your life and in all realms, physical and spiritual. Only the heart within which Satnaam resides, the SatGuru who has conquored the mind, only that one can help your soul before and after death and only if you have done deeds of truth. Only earning true love is important (bhagti). You have not fulfilled your potential if you have not lit the candle of divine love within. You only experience the true happiness within (sat chit anand ghar hamaray) if you have served, loved and done Truth whilst alive.
Baba Ji.
26 Apr 2009.
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