What is it to always remember God’s name? || Acharya Prashant, on Guru Kabir (2018)

First comes the fire of separation, then comes the thirst for love. Says Kabir—understand: only then will you have the desire to meet Him.

~ Kabir

Questioner (Q): As far as I remember, I have been longing for God in various forms and ways. Now nothing known is attractive to me, but the One who is attracting me is still unknown. I have been alright in doing my work. Only when I read these songs does the longing become more and more severe; it intensifies. Does this mean that I missed That?

What does Kabir Sahib mean by remembering God’s name? What is remembrance? In the domain of the mind, we often relate remembrance with some object, but you have always said that it is not about remembering something as an object, it is more of a concern of the subject and maybe something beyond that. Can you clarify this for me?

Acharya Prashant (AP): The mind will want something to hold. The mind will want something to think of and remember. So, if you are a usual person, common man or woman, then remembrance for you means, firstly, remembering that all that which has filled up the mind and attracted you has not been of much avail. That is the first step of remembrance. It is for the common man.

But before this first step, I should have talked of the zeroth step where most of humanity stands. Most people do not remember anything. Most people do not even remember their experiences. They fall into the same hole again and again. They do not remember that they have been through the same thing before and its painful consequences. So, that’s the zeroth step—not remembering anything.

The first step is to remember that you have been hurt again and again, that you have a long past and it is a history of painful encounters, deceptions, letdowns. Then the next step in remembrance is to remember something or somebody who is midway, apparently belonging to the world, but really reminding you of something a little beyond your experiences.

What is the difference between the second stage and the first stage? In the first stage, the first step, all that you remember is what not to trust. You remember what all has deceived you in the past and is hence not trustworthy.

Q: Pitfalls of the zeroth…

AP: Yes. So, the first stage is essentially a stage of being mindful of all that which is hurtful. It is a stage of negation. In this stage you say, “I don’t want to remember this, I don’t want to remember this, I don’t want to remember this.” So, in this stage, instead of becoming a host to a thousand remembrances, like in stage zero, you become an evictor: you want to push out from the mind all that which the mind yearns to remember. Stage one is an exercise in negation.

Stage two is an exercise in affirmation. In this stage, the devotee wants to wilfully remember something-somebody that brings him peace and is yet not of the stage zero level. Mind you, the fellow in stage zero remembers a lot, does he not? The devotee, in the second stage, too, remembers; but first of all, he doesn’t remember a lot, and secondly, that which he remembers is a dispeller of all other memories. There is a strong love, and love has a very cleansing effect.

Even in the usual worldly love, when you are besotted with somebody, then the object of your fancy drives out all other memories, does it not? One single figure occupies your mind and thereby rids your mind of its miscellaneous preoccupations. You become forgetful actually, don’t you? You say that “I am so very lost in the thoughts of my beloved that I am forgetting the usual fair.” That’s what happens in stage two, but in a much more refined way, in a much more sublime way. The figure of somebody totally special fills up your mind, and in filling up your mind, it cleanses away, it dispels, it evicts all the nonsense.

Then there is one higher and final stage of remembrance as well. What happens in that state? That stage is the culmination of stage two, it is the final stage. In this stage, even that which needed to be remembered in the penultimate stage does not need to be remembered because the needy one is gone, because the rememberer, the remembering one is gone. So, who will remember? The one you remembered so much soaked you in; the one you remembered so much simply ate you up; the one you remembered so much pulled you in and united you with itself. Then comes the last stage of remembrance in which there is nobody to remember and, hence, nobody to be remembered.

So, when the saints talk of remembrance, then the meaning of the word ‘remembrance’ varies with the ear of the listener; it depends on where you are standing in life. You are not standing at level zero, that I can assure you, and you are not at the ultimate level, that too I can assure you. So, you are left with stages one and two. What was stage one about? Repeat and revise.

Stage one was to remember all that which does not need to be remembered: once bitten, twice shy─to be very cautious of the prakṛitik pattern of memories; to be very cautious of the waves and the clouds that come uninvited to the mind; to be very cautious of all the dated albums of the past. That is stage one. That is one kind of remembrance.

And then there is stage two if you can graduate beyond the first one. What is stage two all about? Remember the heartwarming figure of a Krishna; remember the music of his flute; remember one particular face that will push out all other faces from your mind; remember one particular mantra that will make you indifferent to all other sounds. But mind you, don’t get attached to the mantra or the face. And if you do that, then instead of slipping back to level one, you will find yourself back to level zero. That will be your punishment.

After level two, there is either level final which is level-lessness, or you will be back to the worst level, like in a snakes and ladders game. So, be very cautious if you have come up to the penultimate place. Either fully succeed now, or fail very badly—and it will hurt. But you have no option. After one comes two—arithmetic, what to do with it?—and after two comes three. You will have to keep moving. And the mind will remember; just the quality of remembrance must keep elevating.

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