My body belongs to the Saints,
my wealth belongs to the Saints,
and my mind belongs to the Saints.
SGGS 610
Dear beloved ones of the Guru, with the infinite and unparalled blessings of great Sant Satguru Baba Ji and great Supreme Transcendent Lord, this servant of yours is trying to disseminate the knowledge of God as appears in Guru Granth Sahib.
The following text has been written under the instruction of God and with His blessings will concentrate on the praise of an enlightened being – Puran Sant. The eternal greatness of such a soul is that he has been eternally blessed by Dhan Dhan Paar Braham Parmesar. And been elevated to the spiritual heights where he has :
- attained all the vital qualities of Dhan Dhan Akal Purakh, and has become like Him,
- been given so many spiritual powers that he becomes the king of all God’s creation
- the power to change anybody’s fate
- the sole purpose to bring other seekers close to the Almighty to achieve salvation.
Guru Granth Sahib has over 670 verses sung in praise of a Sant and gives us complete wisdom needed for completing our spiritual journey.
Let us take this opportunity to understand a few of them as under:
Sorat’h, Fifth Mehl:
My body belongs to the Saints,
my wealth belongs to the Saints,
and my mind belongs to the Saints.
By the Grace of the Saints,
I meditate on the Lord’s Name,
and then, all comforts come to me. ||1||
Without the Saints,
there are no other givers.
Whoever takes to the Sanctuary of the Holy Saints is carried across. ||Pause||
Millions of sins are erased by serving the humble Saints,
and singing the Glorious Praises of the Lord with love.
One finds peace in this world,
and one’s face is radiant in the next world,
by associating with the humble Saints,
through great good fortune. ||2||
I have only one tongue,
and the Lord’s humble servant is filled with countless virtues;
how can I sing his praises?
The inaccessible, unapproachable and eternally unchanging Lord
is obtained in the Sanctuary of the Saints. ||3||
I am worthless, lowly,
without friends or support, and full of sins;
I long for the Shelter of the Saints.
I am drowning in the deep,
dark pit of household attachments –
please save me, Lord! ||4||7||
SGGS 610
These divine words of God are in the praise of a Sant – God most beloved one.
God is very kindly telling us to surrender everything to such a being whose heart is tht of a saint (puran Sant Hirda). The complete surrender to the Sant is the :
- surrendering of your body in service to him,
- surrendering your mind to eliminate your own wisdom – Munmat and take Guru’s wisdom – Gurmat,
- surrendering all the wealth at his feet.
Only such a soul can bless us with the Gurparsadi Naam – “Satnaam”. There is no other entity on this earth which has the spiritual powers to bless us with the Gurparsadi Naam – “Satnaam”.
One thing worth mentioning here is that whenever the word Naam is recited in the Gurbani, it means Gurparsadi Naam “Satnaam”.
The complete surrender to such a soul is mandatory for Puran Bhagtee and for obtaining the Gurparsadi Naam. This is mandatory for Puran Bhagtee and can only be blessed by a Sant upon us. Anybody who follows these divine words and completely surrenders himself at the feet of a Sant and gets the highest eternal gift of Gurparsadi Naam – Satnaam, is blessed to achieve salvation in this life.
By serving such an enlightened soul of a Puran Sant we are relived of millions of sins that we have committed in this life and all the previous lives. How can we serve such a soul – by complete surrender to Him and by earning His words and putting them to practice in our daily life, by Seva (service), Simran (remembrance) and Parupkaar (philanthropist).
Such a soul is called a Sant or a JAN. There is no difference between a Sant and Jan and Guru Tegh Bahadur Patshah has described Jan as –
har jan har a(n)thar nehee naanak saachee maan ||29||
There is no difference between the Lord and the humble servant of the Lord;
O Nanak, know this as true. ||29||
SGGS 1428
So wherever we hear or read the word “Jan” in Guru Granth Sahib, we should respect it as a very high spiritual soul, which is equivalent to Almighty Himself, which means it is same as a Sant, Brahmgiani, Satguru or a Sat Ram Dass.
The company (sangat) of such a soul is a Gurparsadi eternal blessing and is showered on us due to our extremely good fortune. In the sangat of such a soul we are able to get all the eternal treasures, eternal happiness in our current life and also after leaving this world and in the Dargah of Akal Purakh.
There is no way we can describe the eternal qualities of such a soul, because such a soul achieves all the qualities of Dhan Dhan Paar Braham Parmesar, becomes like Him, gets all the spiritual powers to help His Gursangat in achieving salvation, in a nutshell, such an enlightened soul becomes a living God on earth –
O Nanak, the God-conscious being is Himself the Supreme Lord God. ||6||.
SGGS 273
In the company of such a soul we are able to meet the Almighty, who can’t be reached otherwise, because He is Agam – beyond the reach of a common person, Agochar – which can’t be felt or achieved through five senses. The eternal treasures can’t be felt or seen by the five human senses, the eternal and spiritual treasures can only be felt and seen after the soul is blessed by a Sant, who will open your eternal doors – Bajjar Kapaats, and tenth gate (Dassam Duaar) –
The Tenth Gate is the home of the inaccessible, infinite Supreme Lord.
SGGS 974
When a connection is established between our soul and the Braham, then only we can feel and see the eternal and spiritual treasures, “Sudh Abinaasee” – is which never perishes, which is the only truth, can only be achieved by remaining at the feet of a Sant soul.
When we use the word Sant, it doesn’t mean the physical body of a person, it is the (heart centre) Hirda and soul that is a Sant, it is the Pargatyeo Jyot – Puran Braham Parkash that is the Sant. When we surrender to such a soul we don’t surrender to His physical body, but we surrender to His divinity and spirituality, because the body is perishable but the Sant Hirda becomes like Almighty and never dies.
We are worthless creatures, without any good qualities of soul and mind, we are orphans, we are full of sins and all kind of mental sicknesses, our mind and soul is being controlled by five vices – Kaam, Karodh, Lobh, Moh and Ahankaar, we are burning in the fire if desires. And due to such a state of our soul we are drenched completely in a scum and filth filled well of insanity – our current life.
Only a Sant soul can save us from such an extremely difficult situation. Only a Sant has the capability to save our life from such deep mental sicknesses. Only a Sant can clean our inside and make our Hirda and soul like Himself. He is the only one who can give us Salvation by blessing us with Gurparsadi Naam and getting us involved in the Gurparsadi Game –
The Naam is the panacea, the remedy to cure all ills.
SGGS 274
Only Gurparsadi Naam – Satnaam can save our life, this is the only prescription for all these mental sicknesses and five vices.
In the next verse let us concentrate and try to understand the divinity and divine knowledge hidden in it, the priceless jewels of divine wisdome hidden in this verse provide us the key to the door of Dargah (God’s court), which is utmost humbleness and resides under the pious feet of a Sant.
Guru Arjun Dev Ji has again very kindly received and written down the divine knowledge and expressed the divine law about where we can find the Key to the Dargah of Akal Purakh. Again this is Akal Purakh’s Bani (Gur means Akal Purakh and bani means His divine words) which has come to us through a Dhan Dhan Puran Sant Satguru Arjan Dev Ji, who sacrificed His life for the Hukam of Akal Purakh.
The mistake we make while reading this Gurbani is that we don’t understand this fact that Akal Purakh Himself is singing these words sitting in a Puran Sant Satguru and in the praise of a Puran Sant, so please keep this in your mind when you read the Gurbani and try to understand what is being said through these divine words.
Sorat’h, Fifth Mehl:
I am the dust of the feet of the Beloved Saints;
I seek the Protection of their Sanctuary.
The Saints are my all-powerful Support;
the Saints are my ornament and decoration. ||1||
I am hand and glove with the Saints.
I have realized my pre-ordained destiny.
This mind is yours, O Siblings of Destiny. ||Pause||
My dealings are with the Saints,
and my business is with the Saints.
I have earned the profit with the Saints,
and the treasure filled to over-flowing with devotion to the Lord. ||2||
The Saints entrusted to me the capital,
and my mind’s delusion was dispelled.
What can the Righteous Judge of Dharma do now?
All my accounts have been torn up. ||3||
I have found the greatest bliss,
and I am at peace, by the Grace of the Saints.
Says Nanak, my mind is reconciled with the Lord;
it is imbued with the wondrous Love of the Lord. ||4||8||19||
SGGS 614
Divinity and spirituality exists and lives under the feet of the Sant – in the Sants humility. God in the Sant also lives in the dust of the feet of a Sant. This means that the Hirda of a Sant is where there is extreme humbleness, and the eternal blessings come where such a humbleness resides, the humble the Hirda and the higher is the spirituality, so much so the Akal Purakh loves His Bhagats and Sants so much that He lives under their feet, in the dust under their feet, and that is where a Braham Gyani lives –
The God-conscious being is the dust of all.
The God-conscious being knows the nature of the soul.
SGGS 272
The Atam Ras, which is the highest Amrit – Param Jyot Puran parkash comes in to a Sant when He becomes the dust under the feet of entire universe, and such is one of the most vital quality of a Puran Sant, so if we want to bring divinity and spirituality inside us we will have to become the dust under the feet of the entire universe.
This means a soul where there is no ego at all, becomes the Sant Hirda. The soul who starts his journey on the path of truth to Sach Khand, on the path of Puran Bhagtee, will find the key to the Dargah in the dust under the feet of such a Puran Sant. The soul that surrenders completely to such a Puran Sant Satguru, and take the words of such a Sant Satguru as priceless diamonds and jewels and follow them with complete belief and commitment will become like Him.
The company of such a Sant Satgur is a Gurparsadi Game and is blessed only due to our deeds from the previous lives. This means that even if in this life we are unable to obtain such Gurparsadi blessings of a Sant Satgur, and if we continue to make efforts in that direction and keep on doing Dharam Karams, one day Almighty will definitely bless us withsuch a Gurparsadi blessing. Dhan Dhan Paar Braham Parmesar deals with our souls only through these Sant souls, because only the Sant souls are blessed with all kinds of eternal treasures and only such souls can distribute these eternal treasures to the Gursangat. We can, therefore, avail of such eternal treasures in the Sangat of such Sant souls –
In the Society of the Saints, I see God deep within my being.
God’s Name is sweet to me.
SGGS 293
And with the availability of such eternal spiritual and divine treasures all our distractions and mental sicknesses disappear, all our worries disappear, and the five vices will come under the control of our mind, our mind will win over all these big enemies of ours. Not only that such a Sant has the power to destroy all our accounts of misdeeds from all the previous lives, and we will achieve salvation, the finishing of Karam Kand’s account is mandatory for achieving salvation – Jivan Mukti. And when that happens even the Dharam Raj will have no powers to retain us in the cycle of life and death.
When we are blessed with the Gurparsadi eternal and divine blessings of a Sant and we move on the path to Sach Khand, then eventually we reach the stage of Sach Khand and obtain all the eternal happiness, and all the eternal treasures, we become one with the Almighty, our soul merges with the Origin – Paar Braham Parmesar.
These are the eternal and spiritual Gurparsadi rewards that our soul can achieve in the Gursangat of a Sant. There are over 670 verses sung in the praise of a Sant in Guru Granth Sahib. All the Gurus were Sants, all the Bhagats whose Bani has been included in Guru Granth Sahib were Sants too.
It is hard to explain all the verses that are sung in the praise of a Sant, so all we can do is bow before such Pargatyeo Jyot Souls, where all the eternal and divine treasures and spirituality and divinity resides, the key to the Dargah is under the feet of such souls.
In the company of such souls we can
- raise our souls above all the doubts and distractions,
- control five vices,
- win over our mind and
- kill our desires and achieve salvation.
Salvation is the purpose of our human life. If we have not achieved salvation then our this life will go waste like many lives we have lost before.
And there is no difference between the words Jan, Sant, Brahmgiani and Satguru.
Dassan Das (Slave Of God’s Slaves)