AND SHOWERS THE GIFTED WITH MORE GIFTS.

NONE BUT GOD CAN BESTOW SUCH EXCELLENCE.

None but God can bestow you with good qualities. To miss Him is to miss all. Remember, He is the target, the bull's-eye, the only attainment. If the arrow of your life does not reach Him, no matter where it falls, you have failed.

Imagine how it feels to fall in love. The beloved accepts you, takes you to his heart, and your life thrills with the magic of love. Your feet hardly seem to touch the ground; you seem to fly in the air, as if you have developed wings. Unknown bells begin to ring in your life; you have never heard such a melody before. Your face lights up with a strange charm, your eyes convey something not of this world!

Therefore it is difficult to hide love. Everything else you can hide. If you are in love it will show in your face -- in the way you walk, the way you talk -- your eyes and everything about you will give news of it. Every pore of your body will be saturated with love, because love is a remembrance. If the love and acceptance of an ordinary person fills your life with such thrill, then when the whole existence accepts you, what will it be like? When the whole existence loves you, embraces you; when you are tied in the bond of love with existence...!

This is what Meera means when she says, "Krishna, when will you come to the nuptial bed? I have adorned it with flowers. When will you come? When will you accept me?"

The devotee is always thirsting for the lord, as the beloved is for the lover. When the partridge thirsts for the morning dew he calls out. Even a single drop satisfies; one drop becomes a pearl. When a person is so thirsty -- the longing is so great -- then ordinary water turns into pearls. When your longing is so great, a single teaching of the guru becomes a jewel. One drop is enough; one teaching of the guru can become the ocean.And what is the teaching? It is such a small sutra. If you understand it, grasp it - it is small; if you do not, you may take infinite lives more to understand!

So Nanak says one small secret formula quenches all your thirst, that is all: HE IS THE BENEFACTOR OF ALL. LET ME NEVER FORGET HIM. Such a small maxim -- and it quenches all thirst, destroys all desires! And Nanak says: HE MAKES THE WORTHLESS WORTHY and fills you with qualities. When you face Him you become worthy of all attributes. You always were worthy. You were always empty and as you turned towards Him, Lo! You were filled. His glory has stirred you. The veena was always ready within. When you entrusted it to His hands, when His fingers have touched the strings... Lo! Music is born -- the music that lay dormant all this time, awaiting His touch. It can only happen if you put your veena in His hands.

This entrusting itself is shraddha, disciplehood -- to surrender, to be a Sikh. To entrust the veena is the meaning of sannyas. Then you say: Thy will be done. Your wish is now my life. All that is mine is to remember You; all else is Yours. The only need in life is that He should fill your vessel for you not to remain a lonely wanderer in life, that He should be your friend and companion, or else you may seek Him in many places but find Him in none.

Some look to wealth to bring a comrade. Some look to a wife, a husband; but all these guests are imperfect. Until you seek Him directly you will not attain Him. All disqualifications and shortcomings vanish, as soon as He is attained.

Nanak does not suggest that you get rid of your defects one by one, because they are infinite. Avoid stealing, killing, anger, sex, greed, attachments, envy and what else? Nanak does not advise this. He says turn your face Godwards. Remember Him! As soon as His gaze falls on you everything will change. When you have been accepted and have won His favor, then wrath will vanish and greed will fall all on its own.

Once He is attained -- for what are you greedy? What is left for your wrath? Where is the sex? Where is the desire when the ultimate ccoupling has already taken place -- the union with existence. After the ultimate nuptial there is no more search for the beloved. Kabir says, "I am Rama's bride." When you are in love with Rama, when you become His bride, what sexual desire remains?

In our lust we were really searching for Him. We sought Him in dirty gutters and were never satisfied, because the filth of sex could not satiate. It is like forcing the swan to drink from the gutter when it is used to the crystal-clear waters of Lake Mansarovar. The swan within asks also for Mansarovar. Nothing less than God can quench your thirst.

Wander where you will, no one besides Him can satisfy you. You are wandering for lives on end without Him, yet you have not come to your senses. You still hope to reach without Him. Your ego stands guard behind, telling you not to let a full life's toil go in vain.

It is just as if a man builds a house on shaky foundations, perhaps on sand. When the house is nearing completion another man comes and tells him not to enter the house, because it is sure to fall and he may die. Then the mind says, "You have spent so much money, taken so many pains, gone through so much difficulty. Can you let so many years' toil go in vain? And who knows? It might not fall! Perhaps the expert is wrong. Besides, right now it is standing. Who can be sure it will fall?"

Such is your case too, like a man who has lost his way and has been told that he left the road far behind.

In reading the memoirs of a poet, I particularly liked one incident. He writes that he lost his way in the valleys of the Himalayas. He stopped his car before a hut. When a woman opened the door he asked, "Am I on the right path to Manali?"

The woman looked at him keenly and said, "But I don't know which way you are heading."

The poet thought she was a mountain girl and perhaps not too intelligent, so he said, "Tell me, is the light of my car pointing in the direction of the road to Manali?"

"There is a light," she said, "red in color."

When you have traveled a number of miles in mountainous terrain and someone says your light points in the wrong direction, you feel a terrible blow. It means you have to retrace your steps and go back all the way you came. Your ego protests and says, "Go a little further; don't give up. Who knows, this woman may be wrong! She may be stupid, or mad, or lying, or trying to mislead you!"

To turn back is a blow to the ego. You wonder, "Could I have been wrong all this time?" Therefore it is easier to teach children than to teach older people. If they have already walked sixty or seventy miles can they admit to being wrong all that time? The child never resists, because the child has yet not walked. He will go wherever you take him. An old man never will. He will insist that the path he has followed is correct -- because his ego depends on it.

You are all old! God knows how many lives you have been walking, and that is the difficulty. You haven't the courage to abandon the wrong path, because it involves so much effort through infinite lives... rather than to admit that all is in vain, that for lives on end you have been ignorant. Therefore, when you go to a sage you prepare a thousand devices to save your old self, lest His grace pour on you and your cloak of knowledge and experience come off!

Remember! You will have to turn back, because you have left the road way behind... far, far away. It is in this light that Jesus said: "Become like children once again." He is telling you to turn back, to be once again innocent as children. Once you move your intellect out of the way all attributes will shower on you. They always have!

Nanak was not a highly educated person, nor did he come from a rich family. He was born in an ordinary household. On the very first day he started school, schooling was seen to be useless, and yet the divine showers poured on him.

If it rained on Nanak, if it rained on Kabir, why not on you? The only obstacle is that you stand with your back to Him.

One secret formula solves everything: HE IS THE BENEFACTOR OF ALL living creatures. Let me never forget Him.