Anjulia

Guru Arjan Sahib

Revealed by Guru Arjan, this composition is one of two titled Anjulia and is composed in Rag (musical mode) Maru. Maru’s theme is that of battle or war; more specifically, this musical mode communicates the sentiments of enthusiasm, zeal, and inspiration needed to be victorious in whichever battle is being fought. In these compositions, the theme of war relates to the war of life—the daily battles we are in to remember IkOankar (One Creative and Pervasive Force, 1Force, the One) and to remain in that remembrance. Guru Arjan speaks to the warrior within each of us, urging us to seek victory in the battles we face. The titles Anjuli and Anjulia refer to clasped hands, a gesture common throughout South Asian culture when greeting others and when praying or invoking the Divine. As such, Anjulia invokes a tone of salutation and respect, as well as deeper elements of offering and receiving in humility within our relationship with IkOankar. 

The creative and all-pervasive IkOankar is One that is unparalleled. IkOankar is realized through the grace of the eternal Wisdom (Guru). The composition commences with an invitation, a grounding reminder, or perhaps even a call to action, urging seekers to center the One in their remembrance. We are reminded that when the Wisdom-Guru enters our minds, we can receive the Grace of the One, feel the presence of, and connect with IkOankar. 

Guru Arjan begins to speak to the contradictions we’ve constructed and live within: In whose house wealth is abundant, in the house of that being is anxiety. In whose house it is scarce, that being wanders around. Guru Arjan begins by bringing our awareness to a pervasive polarity in the world. Some of us have accumulated much, while others only have enough to get by day to day or paycheck to paycheck. Nobody on either side of this spectrum is truly happy; in fact, Guru Arjan says happiness is not found within this spectrum. Instead, comfort is found through a less-traveled route. We may think accruing wealth will lead to contentment, but this abundance comes with the stress of protecting, spending, and investing it. The subtle anxiety sneaks in—we become attached to the excess, want to sustain it, and fear losing it. The excess overwhelms the mind. The anxiety driving people to keep accumulating leads to pervasive corruption, as the rich hoard more and more resources. Scarcity provides no relief either, as scarcity leads to wandering, forever seeking the next source of sustenance. In this lack, we live in constant anticipation, always focused on how to keep ourselves afloat. Guru Arjan says the ones with joy resounding within them are the only ones free from the entrapment of wealth. Rather than remaining engaged in the duality or seeking a sweet spot within the spectrum of accumulation, Guru Arjan teaches that contentment can be found entirely outside the spectrum, through our relationship with IkOankar. Here, Guru Arjan shows us that victory is not in what we possess or lack materially. In fact, victory is not related to these conditions at all. Victory in the larger war we’re in is when we receive contentment from IkOankar and protect and nurture it so we remain connected to IkOankar.

Guru Arjan continues to highlight the imprisoning nature of our constructed dualities:  In the dominion of household is hell; in detachment is anger, even if the being, through many methods, has studied all texts like the Vedas. Our awareness shifts toward another polarity that resonates globally. Most of us live as householders, and we struggle within this. We struggle to find financial, interpersonal, and emotional equilibrium at home. We become engrossed and entrapped by choices, disagreements, and disappointments. We continue in accumulation, never realizing that when our desires are met, new desires always arise. However, there are those who abandon this type of lifestyle and its frustrations altogether, who often battle pride and egotism because of a sense of moral superiority. They may live as renunciants in ashrams, monasteries, or convents. These people may be wayward travellers who renounce possessions, or those who live off alms and seek spiritual contentment through intellect, technique, and discipline, often of religious texts, or any text offering spiritual guidance. Guru Arjan is again pointing to the underlying entrapment that impacts us equally, no matter which extreme we’ve gone to. When we expect our contentment to come from our accumulation, whether of physical goods or intellectual knowledge, we will only find anger and disappointment, as contentment lies in neither of these accumulations. Guru Arjan suggests an alternative, a way to transcend and walk firmly beyond these entrapments. We expect our efforts of accumulation to be fruitful, and while they may be successful or helpful to varying degrees, ultimately, they don’t offer us freedom. If we remain present yet detached, engaged yet not entrapped in the world, then our efforts are fruitful, and we are winning our daily battles. It’s when we walk a unique path of remaining engaged in our bodies yet serving and praising IkOankar that we find freedom and victory.

Guru Arjan speaks to the condition we are in because of the constructs we bind ourselves to: The being, while awake or asleep, is exhausted due to delusion. Without the Guru, liberation does not happen, O friend! Guru Arjan says that although we appear to be awake, we are actually sleeping—filled with doubts and illusions of attachment. These things eat away at us; they chip away at our inherent beauty, our minds, and our health. They chip away at our relationships with others and with IkOankar. We doubt ourselves and our ability to grow and change. We doubt the Wisdom-Guru. We doubt that we can find contentment through IkOankar. Guru Arjan explains that without the Wisdom-Guru, we are without freedom and remain in the dark, asleep. Like a dog without its owner, we do not know where we are going. Continuing the pattern of transcending illusions and dualities, Guru Arjan reminds us of the importance of the Sage-Guru in our path of liberation. Through the Sage-Guru, the Wisdom-Guru is exemplified in discipline and practice. In the company of the Sage-Guru, we learn how discipline and practice can look in our own lives; we come to exemplify the Truth in a way that is unique to us, and the bondages that keep us asleep and in separation break. Sometimes we don’t know what’s possible, we can’t imagine how our path might look until we see someone else walking the path of the Wisdom-Guru in a way that resonates with us. By walking this path, we win the war to meet the presence of the One in every direction we look, in every moment. Seeing the One everywhere, we experience a powerful happiness in witnessing and feeling that IkOankar resounds within us and throughout the world.

Speaking more to the traps and dualities we are caught in, Guru Arjan says: If the being performs religious deeds, then it gets tied, if it does not, then slander happens. Due to the intoxication of attachment, the mind remains stuck in anxiety. It’s not difficult to see what Guru Arjan is addressing here. We know the tension between the “religious” and the “non-religious” in thought, action, and lifestyle. Culturally, we think of those labeled as religious or spiritual as having a strong focus on discipline and daily deeds associated with austerity. Sometimes, there becomes more emphasis on the acts of discipline themselves than on navigating the world in remembrance of IkOankar; people lose sight of the deeper purpose and become bound by outward displays of austerity. Guru Arjan highlights our hypocrisy: when we do not engage in these austerities, we are cast into another societal realm, where we may be slandered for our lack of reverence. If there is no visible outward display of religiosity, we are often judged as dissenters, heretics, or irreverent. Guru Arjan uses these patterns in society to highlight the underlying anxiety in our attachments more generally. Even in our repetitive work and home tasks, we can become bound by routine and lose sight of the bigger picture and purpose. We all know how basic tasks can sometimes feel like a mountain, even though they are simply part of life’s flow. We are urged to pry ourselves from this sticky mess of the mind through transcendence. As we humbly offer ourselves to IkOankar, we come a little closer to victory in the battle of life, feeling the grace that allows us to move past the mundanity that ensnares us. By coming to a place of greater inner stability, experiencing Ram, the beautiful One, within and around us, our suffering and joys hold less weight. We see them as part of the doing of the beautiful One, IkOankar, and we remain connected to our vision of the beautiful One. We come to see the beautiful One’s pervasiveness everywhere; our lives are beautified and made easier through this constant recognition, where we experience victory. 

Our experience in this world, living in attachment yet subject to a glimpse of Grace, is illuminated: In the world, delusion afflicts. The tale of the Indescribable, Imperceivable Ram is not known. Doubt, delusion, and painful inflictions abound in the world. We can become bound by our shortsightedness, fear, and limitations at any moment, multiple times a day, and we can live in them continuously without noticing at all. Our relationships with ourselves, with others, and with our belongings are often both sites and sources of our complications. We easily let these things become the center of our lives; they become the very things we can’t see beyond, whether due to frustration or infatuation. In this intensity, we may lose sight of the beautiful One, IkOankar. The beauty of the One is easily obscured by these inflictions; the illuminating nature of the One is not known in our minds or bodies. So distracted, we never show up to meet the One; we don’t even know how to begin to meet the One, or if we can meet the One. Guru Arjan grounds us in the role that Grace plays: the beautiful One imparts awareness of Own-Self. We come to understand and relate to IkOankar through Grace. We can try in the ways we know how, but ultimately, the meeting itself is IkOankar’s Grace. Guru Arjan speaks to the tenderness of receiving this Grace. Receiving Grace is a precious gift—it is nurturance in its original form. Receiving Grace is akin to the pure love, protection, and care we receive as children from our caregivers—yet it is the ultimate manifestation of that care. We receive life’s sustaining essence from the Parent of the universe, from the beautiful One, from IkOankar. 

The grip of our attachments is not easy to loosen. In the next line, Guru Arjan speaks to the Grace needed to live outside of this grip: If a being sits, having renounced wealth, even then the wealth is not forsaken. When a being accumulates it, then fear arises in the mind. We may say we’re going to forgo our attachments, but the internal transformation that leads to such liberation isn’t easy. We might actually hold a deep belief that we cannot live without these things; our habits of accumulating them are deeply ingrained. We may claim to be beyond seeking recognition and praise from people, yet again, living that is another thing entirely. If we don’t do the work of building, strengthening, and nurturing a strong relationship with IkOankar, our ultimate support, it is unlikely we will be able to let go of our material attachments. Moreover, we’ve often put so much effort into accumulating possessions, money, and relationships—how could we be unattached to them? We have done all of this under the illusion that these things are what ultimately give our lives value and meaning. Our investments in them are real, yet Guru Arjan shows us that true success and honor lie in something entirely different. Guru Arjan says the One whose honor is preserved is the one who navigates these systems and entrapments without becoming entrapped. These are the victorious ones. Guru Arjan figuratively says a fly whisk is waved over the heads of such individuals. In Indic culture, waving a fly whisk over a person or object holds great significance: it expresses reverence and is a recognition of sanctity, honor, and sovereignty. This tradition may have originated as a way to physically protect the respected being or object from dust and insects; today, it is seen as an act of service and humility. In this vein, it is as if Guru Arjan says the Divine acknowledges those beings among the crowd. Offering ourselves to IkOankar and receiving Grace means we are acknowledged in a way entirely different from the social acknowledgment we are taught to value—it means being recognized and honored by the supremely beautiful One, IkOankar. 

Guru Arjan grounds us in what it truly means to walk this unique path of victoriousness in our lives: Who is brave, only that being’s dying of desire happens;  who flees, that being has to wander in various life-forms. The war-warrior aspect of Rag Maru shines here. We must be warriors in our lives to be victorious. It takes bravery to change how we’re fundamentally oriented to the world, to deepen our reliance on IkOankar rather than on material accumulations. This shift can feel like a complete and daunting reversal of how we’re used to living, but Guru Arjan affirms this is where victory lies. The real task as warriors of our lives is to engage in the battle: to overcome the dualities, attachments, and accumulations that arise from our sense of separation from IkOankar. Guru Arjan says that when we turn our backs on this work, when we run from this responsibility, we are sent to wander. We will wander and wander until we return to the work we need to do to win the battle. The task at hand cannot be ignored; the pain of our accumulated bondages—wealth, relationships, material goods—will continue to weigh on us until we pick up our sword of wisdom and choose to walk toward victory, severing these bonds as warriors. When and only when we accept whatever the beautiful One has caused to happen as good do our bondages begin to break. We no longer lean into our vices to quell our dissonance. When we understand all things as the Command, only then are our pretenses, bondages, and false thinking eliminated. Recognizing the Command as good, our orientation to our own command is incinerated and turned to ash. We see that our own intellect, in which we invested so much, can actually mislead us, and we become elated to live in the Will instead. Breaking out of our “I”-centeredness and replacing it with 1-Ness or Oneness is the fight we must engage in for victory. Only then do we experience the reward of winning the battle, receiving the gift of union and Grace to be one with the beautiful One. 

In the last line, Guru Arjan emphasizes accepting the all-encompassing Will: In whatever, whichever task, O Ram, you engage the being, in that task, the being has to engage. Having continuously created, You behold the tasks that look pleasing to Yourself. We are called to recognize that all we do is caused by the Causer, the Doer, IkOankar. IkOankar’s will is immanent and pervading—the design, our actions, our reactions all unfold according to the Will of the One, as IkOankar pleases. Through submission to this all-pervading Will, we learn to walk in harmony with the One. Walking in the Will means walking as the One has intended for us. This is our true offering to the One: the offering of our minds and our own will. This is the offering that matters the most. Therein we experience Grace and receive the jewel of Nam (Identification with IkOankar) in our clasped hands that have been waiting to receive. This kind of victory is gentle and graceful, yet powerful. Guru Arjan then invokes the name of Guru Nanak, reminding us that all Guru embodiments are of the same light. He describes IkOankar as the Giver of ultimate happiness, the Bestower of complete comfort. Yet receiving this gracious gift of Identification from IkOankar comes with responsibility. This isn’t the receiving of a cliche freedom, wherein we get to lie back and passively receive indefinitely. This is the receiving of a gift which we must nurture like a child, just as IkOankar has nurtured us as children by offering the nourishment of Identification. We care for this gift by walking a path that preserves and honors it. We nourish it by strengthening it in the company of others who nurture Identification within themselves. We feed this gift by continually offering our “selves” to it, until we become nothing other than Identification. This is how we walk in victory each day. In victory, we are in touch with IkOankar, with our Source, with our true identity and purpose. We are inspired to continue receiving the jewel of Identification.

The resounding message here is that there is a way beyond our constructed dualities that is simultaneously engaged with the conditions of our lives, yet a completely unique path altogether; it is this way that is the path of victory. Guru Arjan reveals the thread that links the separation we feel from IkOankar in our minds to the divisions and fractures we witness and experience throughout the world. The conditions we live in—the very real dualities of excess and depletion, the elite and the common people, the religious and the heretics—entangle us. We are imprisoned by the very realities we create; we think they bring us control, yet they control us. Polarities seem to make sense to our minds, and categorization appears helpful in understanding the world, but these lenses prevent us from seeing the all-pervasive unity of IkOankar. Guru Arjan urges us toward victory by shedding our conniving intellects and offering ourselves to IkOankar. By accepting the Command, rather than following the small command of our very finite and subjective intellects, we come to internal peace. Until we truly offer ourselves, we remain caught in “do this” and “don’t do this” mentalities and the condemnations inherent to those dualities. Engaging in the battle invoked here means surrendering our duality-ridden minds to IkOankar. Therein, the illusion of our limited “self” dissolves, and we are granted victory through Grace and Identification. Our journey to victory in the battle does not end there, as seeking victory means continuously protecting and nurturing that Identification within us. Will we accept the Command and detach from expectation? Will we recognize that our most important battle is protecting Identification within? Will we become warriors to win the battle of life?