Mulmantra  10

Gurprasad

 Gur literally means Guru, teacher or en lightener. Guru Nanak ji has used this word for God in many of his poems. It is because of His grace that he was enlightened and understood His Hukam or Will to spread His word. The Guru helps to dispel the darkness of ignorance from our lives so He the God is that ultimate en-lightener that we get by grace of Guru.

Prasad literally means blessings or bounties that we receive by contemplating on the word of Guru. We usually make offerings in temples and Gurudwaras to please God so that He bestows His blessings or bounties on us. But the Bountiful Lord is not dependent on our offerings because He Himself is great Giver, he keeps giving and the taker can become weary of receiving His bounties. His positive attribute of Bountiful grace is independent. It is from this aspect of God that Guru Nanak has developed his doctrine of God’s grace and he has used this aspect of God’s grace in many forms in his poetry. He calls it ‘Nadar’ and it is that grace that helps man to achieve his goal of liberation by realizing the truth of God’s existence. Grace is manifested through God’s word through Guru. This divine favour of God helps the spiritual development of man. Without knowing the God’s word the spiritual knowledge is incomplete and His grace remains illusion.

Other equivalents that Guru Nanak ji has used in his poetry are; kirpa, daya, meher, bhana, bakshish, daya and taras.

With this doctrine of grace all other religious practices become efficacious and only the contemplation on His Name or Naam japuna becomes effective because that alone overpowers haumai or ego. Once the ego is overpowered the presence of God is felt and man gets into harmony with His Will. Guru Nanak has expressed this naam japuna not as a mystical realization but as active realization of Truth of His existence. The person who becomes attuned to this recitation of His Name starts feeling change in his life and he starts transforming. Once that state arrives that you feel absorbed in His Name you start merging into that Divine light. That potentiality of total merger into the Divine light makes man becoming God like. This fact of becoming God-like gives man dignity and glory. This is the real grace of God that Guru Nanak ji has tried to explain to us.

The Mulmantra or Invocation that has been explained above translated in English is:

The Only Infinite One, the only Supreme Being, the Eternal, the Universal Spirit, the Creator Person, the All Pervading, the Sovereign, the Harmonious, the Immortal, the Embodiment, the Un-incarnate, the Self-existent, the En-lightener, the Bountiful.