The way of attaining God is different. Your method of grasping will not work; rather, you have to let go of your hold completely. Nor will your thinking and pondering help; you must discard these too. Your reasoning and logic will be a hindrance rather than a help, and your intelligence will act more like a wall than a stepping stone. On this path the more you rely on your understanding, the further astray you go. You have to leave it all to Him.

To trust one's intelligence is the way of the ego. It means that you have taken upon yourself the task of finding Him. Have you ever realized that whatever we set out in search of must be less, smaller than ourselves? Whatever you attain or acquire must be small enough for your fist to hold. And if God comes within your grasp, He can no longer be God.

Then how is one to attain God? It is quite the opposite way: he who is ready to lose himself attains Him. The only way is to put yourself in the palm of His hand. Our usual attempt is to tie Him in a bundle and bring Him home to show off to others: See we have attained Him! The attempt must fail. Such a vast expanse can't be tied into a bundle. Space cannot be wrapped up in a packet. The packets and the bundles will reach home, but the space will not. Leave yourself in His hands if you wish to attain him.

Nanak never tires of saying: "Endless sacrifices of myself are too little", "Whatever pleases You is best for me", "Whatever You make me do, that is the path", "Whatever You show me, that is the truth."

All these statements suggest only one thing: I have removed myself. I shall not intrude myself on You. I have no wish, no goal, no motive. I shall flow within you.

Therefore I say, faith is priceless, reasoning is fatal. To reason means: I shall decide, I am the judge. Faith means: You are the judge.

THERE ARE MILLIONS OF UNDERWORLDS

AND INFINITE SKIES ABOVE.

THE VEDAS SAY MILLIONS HAVE SEARCHED AND SEARCHED,

ONLY TO END IN EXHAUSTION.

Veda does not mean only the four books of the Hindus; rather it means the words of the sages, of all who have known. The word veda is derived from vid which means to know. It refers to the words of those who have known -- the Buddhas, the Jains, the rishis, just as the original Vedas, the Rig Veda, the Atharv Veda, etc., were the words of ancient rishis, people who have known. Whenever a person attains, knows, his words become Vedas, as will your words when you arrive. There is no limit to Vedas; the words of all those who have known in the past, all those who know today and all those who shall know in the future, are Vedas. Vedas are the quintessence of knowledge, of truth.

Nanak says: The Vedas declare that all those who set out in search ultimately give up, exhausted and frustrated. It is important to understand this, because exhaustion and fatigue bear great importance in the life of the seeker. You will not be prepared to annihilate yourself until you are completely drained and depleted from exhaustion. The time comes finally when you realize that all your efforts are meaningless, that whatever you try to do you know that nothing will come of it. When your attitude of doing reaches the last stages and you realize the uselessness of whatever you do, whatever you find, whatever you attain turns out to be meaningless. Desire goads you on but even success proves flat and useless. Then you are filled with deep sadness and melancholy becauseall the endeavors turned to nothing. This is the point you must reach before you can let go of your ego; not before that.

How could you let go as long as there is still the hope of attaining something -- either a little more effort and it will happen, or the direction is wrong, so you change the method or the guru, and abandon temple for mosque, or church for gurudwara. Until you are completely exhausted and thoroughly frustrated, until your dejection is complete, you cannot let go of the ego.

Buddha searched for six long years. Perhaps never has a human being approached the guest with such intensity. He staked his all in each trial. Whatever he was told he did to the last dot. No guru could say that he was lacking in effort or resolve.

One guru told him to eat only one grain of rice per day for three months. Buddha carried out his instructions. He was reduced to skin and bone, his back and abdomen became one; he could hardly breathe he was so weak. Yet he did not attain knowledge, because knowledge is never attained by doing anything.

Buddha did all that he was told, but the sense of I-ness persisted. He undertook fasts, repeated endless mantra, did penance, worked diligently at other practices, but deep within the subtle ego kept repeating: I am doing it. The fist was closed, the I was present.

The only condition to attain Him is that the I must drop. What difference does it make whether you are running a shop or offering prayers? In both cases the ego is involved; it is you working or worshipping. They are both the shop because you remain at the shop as long as the ego exists; there is a vocation, a job -- that is the everyday working world of samsara. When the ego drops God begins; as you fall away and disappear He appears. You are out, He is in. Both cannot exist together; duality has no place here. There is room for only one -- either you or He.

At last Buddha tired of it all. He had done all that was humanly possible -- all to no avail. The hands were as empty as ever. He stepped into the river Niranjana to bathe. He had become so weak that he couldn't even wade out of the river. The current began to drag him away and he hadn't the strength to swim. He caught hold of a tree branch that was bent over the river; and there, while hanging onto the branch, he realized the fruitlessness of all his efforts. He had done everything that could be done, but gained nothing. In the bargain he had lost all bodily strength, and was so weak that he couldn't cross even a river as small as the Niranjana. Then how was he going to cross the ocean of existence? "All my efforts have brought me only to this. The world has become useless to me -- the palace, all the wealth of the kingdom is like dust to my eyes. Now I am so terribly tired and disheartened that the spiritual search has become meaningless; even liberation is useless." At this point Buddha came to the realization that there is nothing worth achieving either in the mundane or in the spiritual world. All is a sham; all the running about is meaningless.

Somehow he got himself out of the river and went and sat under a tree. At that very moment he gave up all trying, all endeavor, because there was nothing to attain. All lesser attainments had led to frustration and hopelessness. His frustration became total; there was not an iota of hope. As long as there had been hope, ego persisted. Buddha slept under a tree that night. After endless births this was the first night when there was nothing to look forward to, nothing to attain, nowhere to go; nothing was left. If death had approached Buddha this moment, he would not have requested it to wait a while, becausethere was no need; all hopes were dashed to the ground.

In total tiredness all hues of the rainbow of hope have been rubbed away, all dreams are broken. That night Buddha slept soundly; no dream disturbed him. Dreams stop when there is nothing left to be attained, for dreams follow on the heels of desires. Desires walk ahead, dreams follow like shadows, because they are the slaves of desires. No desires, no dreams.

Buddha awakened when the last star was about to fade. But today was different -- there was nothing to be done. Everything had become meaningless. Until the previous day there had been all that feverish activity -- to find his soul, attain religion, God, so many things. And today, nothing! He just lay there. What else was he to do? He was looking at the fading star and, the story goes, at that moment he attained realization.

What happened at that moment? What happened that night that had not happened while he was straining every fiber of his body for six long years? What unique event brought about the realization of the ultimate knowledge to Buddha that morning? The answer lay in that complete exhaustion that Nanak was talking about. Buddha could do no more. He had reached the end of his body's strength, and with no result. The ego was crushed. All activities left him.

As soon as all effort ceases, grace descends; as soon as your hopes are shattered and all activities drop away and all struggling ends, the ego falls and the palm opens.

Do you realize it takes no effort to open your palm, though it does require work to close the fist? When you do nothing, the palm opens of its own accord, because that is its natural position. You needn't do anything to open the fist. Just don't close your fist and the palm remains open. That morning Buddha did nothing -- and the palm opened.

Kabir said, "Things happen without being done." That moment Buddha did absolutely nothing -- and everything happened! He was so tired, dead tired; he was frustrated. He had given up -- and the ego fell away. As soon as the ego dropped God appeared.