About three weeks back, my friend shared a video clip of a sermon by a renowned Sikh Preacher, citing a
spiritual story written by Rumi, a revered Islamic scholar of Iran.
The story is about a poor and orphaned shepherd of Egypt, who lost his parents during childhood and somehow managed to own flock of about 40 sheep to make a modest living. One day, the shepherd, while grazing the sheep, listened to a preacher explaining the attributes of God, that God is un-housed and un-parented with no relatives. The innocent shepherd immediately decided to offer friendship to God, since God is orphaned and un-sheltered like the Shepherd and firmly believed that being of the same level, their friendship is going to last. So the Shepherd made a loud and innocent maiden prayer to befriend God.
The shepherd mentioned that besides similar attributes, he has more to offer to God, including offering sheep milk twice a day, and woolen attires in the winter made out of sheep wool. Shepherd further added to his befriending prayer that he can cure God also with his knowledge of herbs, will do physical therapy to keep Him healthy and even nitpick lice in His hair as the orphans like Shepherd, are more likely infested with lice.
Prophet Moses, also known as Musa, revered highly in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and other Abrahamic religions including Bahai and Druz faiths, used to live in that region of Egypt. Prophet Moses heard the shepherd's unique prayers, while on his way to Mount Sinai (Koh-E-Toor), where Moses used to meditate every night and have a dialogue with The God.
Shepherd's non-formal style of prayers enraged Prophet Moses and Moses scolded shepherd to learn first, how to offer prayers. Disappointed shepherd stated to The God that You were the only one, who matched my attributes for making friendship and sadly my prayers are not per Your code. However, O God, though I am not able to befriend you, but this maiden prayer filled me with intense bliss and contentment.
On the other hand, while meditating at Mount Sinai, Prophet Moses could not connect to The God until midnight and was extremely disturbed that why his routine dialogue with The God is not happening. In the meantime, Moses listened heavenly voice that I have blessed you to connect people with me, whereas today you have broken the heart of a connected innocent human.
The innocent shepherd was sharing his qualities, considering that Me and him are the one, with no duality in his mind. Whereas, mostly the people on spiritual journey praise my qualities while not adopting my qualities, considering themselves separate from Myself. Such followers are infested with duality in mind, leaving the non-believers aside. Prophet Moses begged pardon from God and also apologized to the shepherd. Upon realization of One Light In All, Prophet Moses was bestowed with Ten Commandments from The God while meditating at Mount Sinai.
Furthermore, Jesus Christ never believed in duality that's why He is the beloved Son of God. One of the last seven words of Jesus Christ, while Jesus was being crucified are:
"Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do. (Luke 23:34)"
Duality inculcates implicit bias in our sub-conscious minds, and we never get rid of segregating the God's Creations based on race, religion, faith, caste, color, sex, political affiliations, regions, continents and so on.
Guru Nanak, the first Sikh Guru, happened to be most widely traveled Prophet of his time. Guru Nanak performed four journeys in four directions starting from Punjab, a state in North Western India, encompassing approximately 17,000 miles in 24 years, accompanied by His Muslim companion, named Bhai Mardana. Guru Nanak went as far as Mecca Madina in West, Russia-China in North, Myanmar in East and Sri Lanka in South.
Nowadays. I am also viewing a docu-series named – "Allegory- A Tapestry of Guru Nanak's Travels", having 24 episodes, covering Guru Nanak's travels. This documentary explains, how Guru Nanak shared principles of Sikhism and had spiritual dialogues with religious leaders of Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Jainis, Sufis, Yogis and Sidhas belonging to different faiths, castes, cultures and races.
Guru Nanak also initiated collection of hymns of erstwhile saints and passed it on the His successors. All those hymns are now compiled in Sri Guru Granth Sahib- the eternal and sovereign Guru of Sikhs, in the form of original writings of Ten Gurus and Saints.
Sri Guru Granth Sahib starts with the word IkOankaar (Ik is digit-1 and Oankaar means Creator). IkOankaar is followed by the words, briefing qualities of The God- He is the eternal truth; without fear; without hate; without form; beyond birth; self-existent and one can join Him with His grace only. Guru Nanak purposefully chose the digit "1" in place of a word, to clearly state the existence of only One God than any other else in this universe, thereby refuting duality in this universe.
These few verses from Sri Guru Granth Sahib reiterates that the whole humanity must embrace the qualities of The God to get rid of duality, to shun duality:
- From one clay has The Creator made countless shapes, sizes and colors! Neither are the
vessels badly made, nor does the Creator lack any skill!! - Do not enquire about one's caste and birth! Eternal honor is determined by one's deeds!!
- Do not utter even a single harsh word, True Lord abides in all! Do not break anyone's heart,
these are all priceless jewels!!
Similarly we might embrace such good teachings of all world religions & faiths thereby eliminating duality and hence mitigating the prevailing Social, Religious and Cultural problems, to make this Garden of Humanity more pleasing.
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