April – Mul Mantra – Sat Naam – Guru Ramdas

Truth is Truth.
Beyond all we know there remains an unknown Truth
Truth will always be vaster than any temporary conditioned belief about truth.
Therefore take these few words as mere reflection of the shadow of truth.

Ek ongkar Sat Naam is the basic guidelines for how to life in the world, in the creation.  Karta Purkh is the turning point in life.  Nirbhau, Nirvair, Akaal Murat Ajuni tell us how to prepare for departure and liberation.  Saibhang is the supreme self-existing light conscious being.  Gur Prasaad is the prior blessing that makes it all possible.

The guidance of Sat Naam is to live truthfully, to be who you really are. To bring the breath of reality into every moment and every word.  Sat Naam will bring you to the present, especially if you link it to the breath. However it is a choice. It will not happen by passivity which leads you to fall into the past.
Sat Naam is a declaration of realisation of there being a True Identity of Self. It is the attitude that carries you through and across every moment. It is an expression of the journey home. The journey back to the True Self.
Sat Naam is saying that, though you cannot intellectually, or rationally, know the Truth, yet by intuitive experience of identification (Naam) with Truth, then the Truth is known.

To say Sat Naam is like ‘crossing your heart’ – making a promise that cannot be broken.
We know that, living in the created creation, we have a tendency to fall asleep, to forget who we really are. The creation has its 3 dimensions that bring us into trance. Sat Naam is the wake up call as well as the means to stay awake.  It is the injection of reality into any and every situation.
Especially and specifically Sat is the challenge; the interruption of your patterns and hypnosis. The Sword of Truth cutting through the dream and saying – “Stop, here is the real you”.  Naam is when you can hear it and reply with peaceful surrender – “oh really, that’s me”.
Sat Naam says “it is so”. It is the invitation to relate to the unchanging identity in yourself and in others. Being in this state of truthfulness gives you the sense of God within. Now there is nothing more to do than trust fully.
(Wahe Guroo is the declaration of the sustained state of being fully awake.)

Sa is continuity. Sa is the breath of life and breath of God. Sa is the Self – breath of spirit in all.
Sa is the totality. Sa is all inclusive. It is the all embracing vastness more than all the space we can imagine, and the eternal that embraces all time beyond our conception of it.

Sat Naam is the 4th step in the Mul Mantra. Guru Naanak spoke the words and each of the Gurus took on the incarnation of those words. The 4th Guru is Ramdas and he was the embodiment of Sat Naam. In one of his Shabds (Hymns) he says “Jap man Sat Naam sada Sat Naam”. it is a call to consciousness to be always bringing your self back to Truth. The environments of Maya and the 3 gunas, past karmas and the effects of Kali Yug are very distracting. Therefore there is a conscious effort required to ensure that the next moment, the next breath, the next words we speak, will be in the consciousness of Sat Naam.

As breath is a feeling, as the 4th sense is a feeling, so Sat Naam is a feeling and the presence of Guru Ramdas is a feeling. This feeling arises in truly human company. The human is the 4th plane of existence, after mineral, plant and animal. So the community of conscious and present human beings is naturally awakening, inspiring and will touch the place of Truth in your heart. The soul breathes in the human moments of a shared sense of We-in-me.
The feeling you have when touched by an act of selfless service is the presence of Guru Ramdas. Da implies giving and Sa the infinite totality. Everything given is from and is given to God.
Ram was a name more often associated with royalty. However the real sign of inner royalty, of the Raj Yogi, is not by the the fine clothes or crown on the head, but by the abundance of the heart. Selfless service come out from the Cup of Prayer. An overflowing generosity that loves God through the creation, and which says “nothing is mine, all is Thine”. Ram Das means the servant of the Divine in its expression as Ram; which is the all-pervading nature of God. In other words ‘God on all 4 sides, in all 4 direction, on all 4 planes of existence’.
In that same spirit of the inner Divine Cup in which the soul can take rest and bathe Guru Ramdas initiated the establishment of the Tank of Amrit and the Golden Temple at Amritsar.
The miracle of Guru Ramdas is the way he turns takers into givers. When your life has come to nothing, and you feel you have nothing to give. This is the moment Guru Ramdas has been waiting for. In the darkness of zero the hidden light of Truth can shine. Hence the empty and broken heart becomes full from within itself. The heart reveals itself as the short cut door to The Grace of God and Guru. This is expressed in the mantra Ek Ongkar Sat Gur Prasaad!