Old man's and young lad's doubt - What is ONE???

I am going to start this blog inspired from Guru Nanak's definition for the Master of Universe - Ik Onkaar.. Actually I thought of starting other topics, but could not feel any other better than this topic... after all, this is one of the best shop in town these days! "Religious" people will kill me on my this comment... still truth prevails...

Ik Onkaar...

One may also start this as defining, just the way we are learning this word, way from our childhood, or rather more early, like, from our mother's womb to present day's laptop version of the Guru, we may always break the words related with the words "Ik Onkaar". English lacks the flexibility that Gurmukhi has, even if I try to write "1 Onkaar", we will read 1 as "one". You just did it! Still it is ok, but let us continue and don't get deviated "right now" itself!

What is One? We just read and think, "Yes, Guru Sahib says, the Lord whom we should recite all day and night, is just One lord and nobody more or less". But my mind simply could not imagine that. Actually our mind has this limitation, it tries to imagine things, and tries to relate the words with the scenes or pictures one has seen in his/her life. Not only humans, animals also has the same tendency, animals dream the way we dream, infact Staley - my Labrador moves his legs while sleeping, as if running after a live running Paneer Tikka, in his dream, ofcourse... :-)

So, how can we treat the Lord as One, if we just don't try to imagine Him as somebody huge and powerful, who is alone in the Universe, yes, sometime when I think "Ik Onkaar", I try to imagine Universe and space outside earth, ofcourse, this is due to the massive size of space outside earth, by virtue of which, we can "imagine" Lord's power and His One-ness!

But still, no... nothing seems to tell me, how can I see the Lord as one? See, I have written 3 paras till now, still I have not been able to start realizing One-ness of God?

Or? I am fooling myself? Has Guru Nanak sent some other message to me, that I am unable to decipher?

Does that One means One-ness by being together? Just the way when a boy given a thin stick of bamboo was able to break it, but when several thin sticks of bamboo were placed together and was given to be broken by Mr. Olympia, even he was not able to break that One stick which was made from several sticks? These child-hood stories sometimes do wonders... Why have we been hearing that God is everywhere?

I think I am getting a little hint to what Guru Nanak is referring. Ofcourse this is much more tough than the Da Vinci code, which is supposedly written in the same era! But, Guru Nanak was born before Da Vinci... What an era of the Genius ones!

Ok, not getting into Da Vinci code anymore, let us move onto what we were discussing.. "Ik Onkaar"

So, as per the above discussion of my brain elements inside, I have concluded that Guru ji is referring the One as One-ness of the Force...

Now, comes the controversial part, the word Force. Ofcourse, any 8th class student can tell what is Force, he will promptly say, it is a multiple of Mass and the acceleration! Voila! Perfect answer!! But how can this be suited with the above word "Ik"?? Ofcourse, it can!! Force can be experienced as a push or pull, a lift etc, also mathematically as rate of change of momentum of the body.. Math-haters, kindly apologize, but I am a Math-lover, hence would like to co-relate the above as a theory... there is another "form" of force, it is called Electro-magnetic waves, this force cannot be seen, not even felt by humans! This is the same wave force, through which we see Television, and receive cell-phone calls! It is every-where! All universe, has Electro-magnetic waves, we just cannot feel it, neither touch it, nor taste it, nothing! There has to be a special receptor for detecting the waves, but waves are always around us... We can also go in Electron and Proton theory, but let us leave that for time-sake... so as we concluded, the electro-magnetic waves are always surrounding us, we just don't feel them, and we need a receptor to catch the waves, but it has happened with most of us, that cell-phones stop working while in Elevator, or when under-ground, this means the wave that what we try to catch is not present... but at the same time, a guy seated next to under-ground parking can hear Football match commentary? How? The waves are there, but not the ones that we want, right?


I don't know where I am going, but I think I am realizing something... One-ness comes by virtue of force, this is the moral and there are EM waves present around us that we cannot feel. I am not going to calculate God's force or existence, as it has been made clear by Guru Nanak himself that only fools try to measure God, so I am just trying to understand what Guru Nanak said...
"Ik Onkaar" ---- Ik means one-ness to me till now.. don't know how Gurbani changes my mind further, but I am flexible for further changes... be flexible, that is the key...

Let us come to second word "Onkaar". This as per all the books I have studied, attended the lectures, discussions amongst friends, have realized that this word refers something related to the Hindu word - Om... I am not inviting any arguments, hence I apologize for any inadvertent comments that may hurt the feelings of others...

What is Om? I think it is a mono-syllable word that was invented by Yogis in ancient India. According to them, this syllable produces a sound which may sound very soothing, lulla-bying effect, may put you in trance (I dont know what is that, though) if you keep on repeating the name. The force related to repeating one name can never enter my mind, but still there are alot who say until we keep on digging for a well at a point, you cannot get water out, still I am not convinced. There might be some state of mind which can be hallucinating and one can see pictures and people just because of our imagination, exactly, the Gandhi in Lagay Raho Munnabhai! I read one story, in Tibbet, they used to do a lot of experiments on spirituality. One experiment was to say "Mooh Mooh" continuosly, for 3 days the monk has to chant Mooh Mooh Mooh... he is not allowed to say anything else, nor talk to anybody, and he is sitted in a white hall, just chanting Mooh Mooh.. He is allowed to do natural activities including eating, drinking etc, but he should come back as soon as possible, and start chanting same word!! It is said that, for first day, it is quite difficult, as physical pressures like leg-aches, blood-clogging etc are there if they just sit continuously, next day is also quite difficult. Early part of second day is okay, as soon as it descends to 3rd day, the monk starts shouting hysterically, shouting to his throat, fully shouting, shaking all over, then comes the 3rd day, the shouting increases manyfold, you may feel that the monk could die, but monk just continues Mooh Mooh Mooh Mooh... after some more time, the monk immediately quietens! Then he remains quiet for not sure how long, and he attains a state called "maun" or the one who doesn't speak..

Now coming to the force with the word "Om". As said, it was invented in ancient India, and slowly as civilization expanded, and humans tend to evolute, they eventually started seeing every force in nature relating to a divine power. They made each force, like rain, sun, water, moon, everything they could see, they made a Divine Man/Woman from that force of nature that they saw. They made Sun God, Water God, Moon God, Lightening Goddess etc... After further studies, they thought since everybody is taking birth, living and dying, there must be a God related to all these 3 tasks of a person's life! Hence birth was given a Divine God called Brahma, Living was given a Divine God called Vishnu and Death was taken by Shiva. Some scientists (Yogis), I call Yogis as scientists, they were the gems of ancient India, but yet failed to realise True Meaning of Life. They treated human body as a combination of 3 forces or Trinity - The genital organs as Brahma, the stomach as Vishnu and the brain as Shiva, eventually further they found some nerves in the body which when stimulated, gave cosmic powers and energy, which they thought as reaching God's doors, referring as Dasam Dwar.

Coming down to 3 forces or Trinity, breaking old man's doubt of treating all these forces of nature as different Gods holding powers, Guru Nanak declared that all the forces in the nature, which we can feel, we can see, we can hear, whatever we can imagine, are tied to a single force, after realizing this, the different forces doesn't seem separate, rather they appear as One single force, having Total control all over!

"Ik Onkaar"


I think Guru Nanak's message is getting a little clear now. But there is still a doubt, we are kind of clear of "Ik" and "On", but what is "kaar"?
If we now, take the above examples, we can see that all the above forces which are nothing but One-force, is doing something forever, like taking birth, living, creating, dying etc, which means it is just continuously doing something every moment, this leaves nothing but the word - Eternal, or forever! As we don't know since when the Universe (current one) started, and when it will end, we just don't know, and treat this evolution as eternal, we can say this is forever...

Moral

Just the same, as I have read always - There is just one force that is holding every element in this Universe with itself, and this has been happening forever and will be forever. A scientific definition of the Undefined has been given by Guru Nanak, just perfectly!