Lehal Library

42 The Puajab and the Birth of Sikhism can be nurtured to fulness by nam.56 Once the power of the ego is properly canalized the conquest of the other five sins-lust, anger, greed, attachment, and pride-follows as a matter of course. The wanderings of the restless mind are stilled and it auains a state of divine bliss ( vismiul). his in that state of super• conscious stillness (divya dris_ti) that the tenth gate, the dasam dvar (the body having only nine natural orifices), is opened and one receives a vision of God and merges one's light with the light etemaI.!7 For such a one the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth is ended and he attains salvation.38 Nanak bt-lieved in the triumph of human will over fate and predestination. He believed that all human beings have a basic fund of goodness which, like the pearl in the oyster, only awaits the opening of the shell to emerge and enrich him. But most human beings are as ignorant of the goodness in them as the deer is of the aromatic kasUin in its navel; and just as the deer wanders about in the woods to fall in the snares of poachers or becomes a victim of the hunter's darts, so man falls in the snares of m:lya (illusion). The chief task of the Guru is to make men aware of the treasure within him and then help him to unlock the jewel box. A method advocated by Nanak was the gentle one of sahaj.~ Just as a vegetable cooked on a gentle fire tastes best because 36 This was summed up by Guru Angad, when he said: hau main 1lirngh rog hai dliru bhi is mii11h (Asa} Ego is a foul disease; but it carries its own remedy. 37 In the fort of the body God has fixed nine windows for the use of the senses. It is through the tenth that the Unseen shows Himself in His Greatness. (Miiru) 38 In the ]apji. Nanak mentions four successive steps towards salvation. These are dJmram khail4, gyiln khaiuf., karam kha1JI!,, and sac khaiuJ,, corresponding lO discipline, knowledge, action, and ending with the blissful merger in God. These steps follow ver,r closely the four stages of the spiritual progress of the Sufis. 39 Sahaj is both a method and a state of being. The method is one of gentle discipline, the State sahaj avastha, a mystic fulfilmem. Ir is the state