The wife of a Sikh gentleman once complained to me: "Things are getting out of control. My husband comes to see you, so please advise him."

"What is the matter?" I asked.

"He gets up at two in the morning and begins to recite the japuji. It is impossible for the rest of the family to sleep. If I complain he tells us that we should all get up and chant too! What should we do?"

I called the husband to me. "When do you recite the japuji?" I asked him.

"Early every morning, about two," he replied proudly.

"That is proving to be quite a nuisance to others," I said.

"That is their fault," he said. "They are lazy and indolent! -- they should all get up at that time. Besides, I'm doing them a service by reciting aloud so that the holy words can fall not only on the family's ears but the neighbor's as well."

"Take it easier with your practices," I advised him. "You can get up at four in the future." You have to bring down such a person by degrees, or else it is impossible to bring him down at all.

"Never!" he replied. "I never expected to hear such words from you. Do you want to rob me of my religion?" He couldn't believe his ears.

Now this was his arrogance -- that no one could recite the japuji like him. This alone is his obstacle. You may repeat the japuji all life long, but the real need is to destroy your arrogance.

Therefore Nanak says time and again, "Nothing can be attained by whatever you do, unless you eradicate your own self." This concept of the guru is a priceless alchemical device to annihilate the ego, because whatever you do, you just say, "It is all the grace of the guru." I am doing is the difficulty. If you can eradicate your I without any help, you do not need a guru. But it is one in a million who can do this; he is the exception for whom we need not make any rules or regulations.

It happens sometimes that some person drops his ego without the help of a guru, but it requires a very deep and profound understanding which you do not have. The understanding should be so deep that you can order your ego to stand before your eyes -- and by your mere looking, the ego must drop. Your eyes must be like the eyes of Shiva, through whose very glance the god of love turned to ashes. You should have such awareness. A Buddha, a Krishnamurti, surveys the ego with such intensity that it melts into nothingness. No other feeling then arises in its place; and they are not even aware of having done something, it just happens.

But you are not they. Whatever you do, a voice within constantly repeats : "I have done this, I have done that...." If you sing hymns, you are conscious that you are singing the hymns. If you meditate, the feeling within is: "I am meditating." With your prayer or your worship your ego is replenished and recreated every moment.

Let us leave these one-in-a-million exceptions aside, because they are bound to attain. For the millions of others there is only one way: whatever they do, whatever practice or ritual or repetition, the feeling should be that whatever results is due to the guru's grace.

He was truth before the ages began and as time ran its course.

Nanak says, Now is He truth eternal, and forever will He be.

There is a very old saying in India that during the sat yuga, the age of truth, the guru was not needed much, but in kali yuga, the age of darkness, which began about five years ago, the guru will be a necessity. What is the reason? The Sat Yuga was the period when people were very alert, full of awareness. In the Kali Yuga people are insensitive, slumbering, almost unconscious.

Therefore the religions of Buddha or Mahavira born in the Sat Yuga, are not of as much use in today's world as the religion of Nanak. Nanak's religion is the newest, though it too is now five hundred years old. We need another new religion, because those who heard Mahavira and Buddha were relatively more alert than us; they were also wiser, simpler and more artless. And even further back, the people who listened to Krishna were even more aware and alert.

As we move backward we find more innocence... just as when a person recounts his life backwards, he arrives at the period of his childhood. In infancy he is simple and innocent; in youth he begins to become complicated. It is difficult to conquer an old man filled with wisdom. He knows nothing and yet he feels he knows everything. He has been thrown about by life. Through his suffering he feels he is very experienced; he has gathered trash and he thinks he has collected diamonds.

The child is simple, innocent; he is the symbol of Sat Yuga. The old man is highly complicated, and his insensitivity increases day by day as death is drawing near -- he is the symbol of Kali Yuga. The child's consciousness is very fresh because the fountain of life is very close to him. He is like a wave just arisen from God. The old man is dirty, weighted down by dust, and about to fall back into God. The child is a fresh bud; the old man is a withered flower whose life breath is just about spent.

Kali Yuga means that period where the end is near. Life is now old. In Kali Yuga you cannot, under any circumstances, do without the guru because you will be constantly filled with ego. When each little thing that you do fills you with ego, how will you not be filled with arrogance when you do your spiritual practice? If you build a small house and pride yourself on it, fill your treasure chest and your conceit will know no bounds; and when you start on the quest for the supreme treasure your self-importance and vanity will be unfathomable.

Notice the contemptuous look of the man who goes to the temple or to the mosque towards those who do not. His eyes tell you: You sinners will rot and burn in hellfire! Look at me! I pray every day and I am saved." He recites, "Ram, Ram," and thinks the gates of heaven are open for him and all others will go to hell.

The greater your insensitivity, the more somnolent you are, the greater your need for a guru. Understand that. If you are fast asleep, how can you awaken yourself? Someone else will have to shake you. Even then the chances are that you will roll over and fall back asleep again.