SAB KA MALIK EK HAI








I haven’t been to the hallowed shrine of Sai Baba at Shirdi. But, I feel very close and connected to the great mystic. The more I reflect on the kind of life he practiced and preached, the more relevant spirituality and religion seem to me.


The same is my feeling about Kabir.


The God we hear about in the teachings of Sai Baba of Shirdi and Kabir is formless… And, He doesn’t reside within the confines of temples and mosques…Their God lives in every pore of our being… in every breath we take… and, to experience Him, we need to pull down the walls we have created between us – the Hindus and Muslims, between you and me…


“Sab ka Malik Ek Hai"… How loosely we use Sai’s famous words!


Is that really so? That, the God that you and I worship is the same?


Really?


Will I teach it to my children?


Will I teach it to my students?


“There is a wall of separation between oneself and others and between you and me,” says the great mystic of Shirdi, “Destroy this wall!”


Today, as I see even the 'highly-educated' people around me busy building the walls of separation and spreading poison of religious hatred, I feel even closer to Sai of Shirdi and the simple village-weaver, Kabir. Yes, the God they spoke about and the way they worshiped make even more sense to me…


Our so-called ‘higher education’ has taught us nothing!


“I felt the need of a great pilgrimage,” says Kabir, “so, I sat still for three days and God came to me.”


The more I see the madness in the name of our religions, the more meaningful the words of Kabir and Sai sound to me…


All that the ‘madness’ around me does to me is: it helps me strive sincerely to pull down the walls of separation and seek God – ‘Sab Ka Malik’ – in the breath inside my breath, as Kabir teaches us to seek.



GERALD D’CUNHA

Pic.: www.dreamstime.com


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