by SS Mata Mandir Singh Khalsa, Italy
2026 (Third Quarter)
Words are clumsy things to describe reality. Who can describe the indescribable? Take, for instance, an oak tree. The words probably convey to the average reader a shape, a leaf, an acorn and a profile. Actually, an oak tree is an ecological engineer. It is the center of a web of interconnecting life forms that include bacteria, fungi, insects, plants, birds and animals. It literally shapes the composition of soil in the entire biological community around it. It is miraculous, and one could write books about it! My point here is that, to understand an oak tree, one must spend time contemplating the tree and the environments around it. We cannot understand its true nature without a deeper, often nonverbal contemplation of it. Just so with a subject as vast and truly awesome as Gobind, the sustainer of the universe.
Deep Understanding
I know of two words which speak to this type of deep understanding. One is the ancient Yogi term “Samyanka.“ This word conveys the concept of understanding something completely and thoroughly. In English, we have a word that was created by Robert Heinlein in his excellent novel Stranger in a Strange Land. The word is “grok.“ It has now entered the English language, and can be found in dictionaries as well as daily use. It means “to understand something spiritually. To become one with it. To reach an understanding so thorough that it changes you.” I recommend contemplating Gobind in exactly this way.
Let’s go briefly into the weeds! Take our own organism, for instance. In the west, we are programmed from an early age that we are isolated, solitary beings brought into a world which is not us. Is that reality? Or is the mantra, “God and we, we and God, are one“ the reality? Let me explain what I mean. We all breathe, most of the time unconsciously, without directing or controlling this vital function. Neither did we decide to start breathing, nor can we can command the breath to stop for more than a minute or two. If I interpret this clearly, I would say that we are being breathed!
Or take the bloodstream and the blood vessels that make up the circulatory system. They perform a variety of functions necessary to life, often that are in seemingly direct conflict with each other. This system must maintain blood pressure sufficient to supply all the organs, but not too much, which would damage the whole system. It must deliver vital nutrients throughout the whole body, but also ferry waste products from the cells to the eliminating organs. It must allow the immune system to react to fight infection, but not too much, in order to limit damage from inflammation. One could write whole books about its function. All of this takes place without our control, and often without even the basic knowledge of how it works. What a miracle this is! All of this and so much more is in the hidden hand of Gobind. Furthermore, all of this functions with the help of billions of other living organisms, such as bacteria and fungi to make all the systems work. Baba Siri Chand describes the body as a city. He was right. It is a community. We are hardly alone or solitary in our existence. That is a microcosm.
The Universe is Sustained by Gobind
The macrocosm is so vast as to be beyond human understanding. Science tells us that there are 100 billion galaxies, each containing 100 billion solar systems. They all have their attending planets and moons. They are all revolving in a perfect rhythm and harmony. That is a reality beyond words that is Gobind! Waheguru!
Bahota Karam Likhia na Jae.
Vada data til na tamaea
So many actions, they cannot be written.
The Giver gives, not taking even a sesame seed.
In these times, with so much conflict and insanity in the world, how can one stay focused on reality? There is so much disinformation and lies being disseminated at an extraordinary rate, with no shared reality among people. The Sikh Gurus laid out the path in the midst of perhaps much tougher conditions than we face today. They showed a deeper level of how the universe is sustained by Gobind. It is explained so perfectly in Anand Sahib.
Anand bheeya meree maee,
Satigur mai paia.
Satigur ta paia sahaj seti,
Man vajeea vadaeea.
Rag rattan parvar pareeai,
Shabd gavan aeeya,
Sabdo ta gavo
Hari kera,
man jinee vasaeea.
I am in ecstasy oh my mother, for I have found my true guru.
I have found the true guru with intuitive ease, and my mind is filled with the music of bliss.
The jeweled melodies, and their related celestial harmonies have come to sing the Word, the Shabd.
Hari dwells in the minds of those who sing the Shabd.
The rest of Anand is an explanation of these lines. The Sabd or Shabd, is referred to in Gurbani by many names. It is the sound current of the universe, often translated as the “unstruck melody.”
It is sometimes called Gurucharan, or satigur. Christianity refers to it as the “Word,“ and the Sufis referred to it as “sauté e surmad.“ It is the primal sound which was there when the universe began and continually vibrates throughout the universe.
The One Sound Current Vibrates in Every Heart
As Guru Nanak says in Japji Sahib, Ghat Ghat vaaje naad. “In every heart vibrates the one sound current.” If we tune our minds to the frequency of the Shabad and the mind agrees and enters this timeless realm, we become connected throughout all the eight watches of the day, then the job is done
One of my favorite stories in Sikh Dharma is about that first stanza of Anand. A simple man, a non-educated man, had heard of the path of Guru Amar Das and came to his court. The Guru had just composed the Anand, and he told one of his Sikhs to take the man and teach him about it and about Gurmukhi. Sometime later, the Guru said to his Sikh, “Whatever happened to that guy I sent with you to learn the Anand Sahib?” The Sikh said, ”Well I taught him the first few lines and he bowed and thanked me and then he left. I never saw him again!” So the Guru said, “Find him! I would like to speak with him.” When the man appeared, the Guru said to the man, “So what happened to you?“ The man said, “ I am not a scholar. I am a simple man, and when your Sikh taught me these first lines I was in bliss and I understood. It was enough!” The Guru said the man was “Nihal,” beyond the conditions of the phenomenal world. It is that simple.
Waheguru ji Ka Khalsa
Waheguru ji ji Fateh!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MSS Mata Mandir Singh Khalsa is an international teacher of Kundalini Yoga and Gatka and has dedicated his life to the practice and teaching of Naad Yoga, the yoga of sound. A heartfelt singer/songwriter and accomplished musician (guitar, rabab, harmonium, mandolin, and cittern), he is a pioneer of the chant and mantra genre, having recorded around 30 CD and cassette titles since the 1970s. Mata Mandir Singh is a featured artist on the Invincible Records label. He is the author of the e-book, Naad Yoga: The Yoga of Sound (available as an e-book on Amazon). Mata Mandir Singh is now the Director of Kirtan studies in the Guru Ram Das Kirtan Academy in Boizenburg, Germany and teaches a variety of instruments, vocal training and Naad yoga worldwide via Zoom or in person.
