sirīrāgu mahalā 5.
sabhe thok parāpate je āvai iku hathi.
janamu padārathu saphalu hai je sacā sabadu kathi.
gur te mahalu parāpate jisu likhiā hovai mathi.1.
mere man ekas siu citu lāi.
ekas binu sabh dhandhu hai sabh mithiā mohu māi.1. rahāu.
lakh khusīā pātisāhīā je satiguru nadari karei.
nimakh ek hari nāmu dei merā manu tanu sītalu hoi.
jis kaü pūrabi likhiā tini satigur caran gahe.2.
saphal mūratu saphlā ghaṛī jitu sace nāli piāru.
dūkhu santāpu na lagaī jisu hari kā nāmu adhāru.
bāh pakaṛi guri kāḍhiā soī utriā pāri.3.
thānu suhāvā pavitu hai jithai sant sabhā.
ḍhoī tis hī no milai jini pūrā gurū labhā.
nānak badhā gharu tahāṁ jithai miratu na janamu jarā.4.6.76.
-Guru Granth Sahib 44
Guru Arjan Sahib states that the beings who always keep IkOankar (the Divine) in their mind through Wisdom (Guru) receive happiness equivalent to hundreds of thousands of empires. They are able to reach such a steady state that no suffering or sorrows can cause them to waver. This Sabad is read and sung with devotion and enthusiasm on happy occasions, such as the birth of a child. The main reason for this is the line ‘lakh khushian patshahia’ (happiness of hundreds of thousands of empires).
Commentary
Literal Translation
Interpretive Transcreation
Poetical Dimension
Calligraphy
The rag (musical mode) this composition is set in is considered to be the ultimate and most revered musical mode. It is used to communicate the serious and the thought-provoking and gets at the truth of things.
Guru Arjan says, O my mind! Attach your consciousness with the One. Without the One, all other efforts are only entanglements. The world and all its attachments are transient and meaningless. The Guru uses the One to refer to IkOankar (One Universal Integrative Force, 1Force, the One) in a way that universalizes this message, transcending schools of thought or philosophies. Without the one, everything else is a transaction. Without the One, everything is mithya, and maya. Maya is an attachment to the material and our relationships. Mithya often gets translated as false, which can be interpreted to mean temporary. It is not that the world is not real; it is just not absolutely Real. It is not that life on earth is false; therefore, we ought not to take part in it. It is instead that when we root ourselves only in the temporary, when we fool ourselves into clinging to things we think are “ours,” what we are doing is straying further and further away from IkOankar, the Eternal. And it is due to this distance from the eternal and this binding ourselves with the temporary that the world becomes mithya. Our lives become solely about accumulating things that will eventually perish, and everything we do becomes transactional. The Guru tells us that it is only the One that matters because without the One everything else is some other collection, accumulation, or transaction. Methods? Efforts? Belongings? Materials? Relationships? All is Maya, and all is attachment. This is why the mind is being urged to listen. We ought to clear our minds and our consciousnesses. If we do not do this, we will continue to build up our accumulations and transactions. We will continue to create attachments and temporariness and falsities.
O my mind! Attach your consciousness with the One. Without the One, all other efforts are only entanglements. The Guru says all things are received if IkOankar is understood and connected with. If we do this, we experience the “auspiciousness” of having everything. If we have grasped the One, this is equivalent to having all material things. This is how life and birth are fruitful and successful. If the eternal Word is uttered, if the infiniteness of the message is understood, life becomes fruitful. The mansion of the One is found through the Wisdom. This is the place where we seek to dwell. This is the space we want to live in. We get this written on our foreheads if we begin to feel the Command through the Wisdom and live in accordance with that Command. This is the role of the Word and the Wisdom. If we want to grasp the One, we ought to focus on that eternal Word with the help of the eternal Wisdom. This potentiality is written on every forehead.
O my mind! Attach your consciousness with the One. Without the One, all other efforts are only entanglements. The Guru says that we ought to consider that the happiness of hundreds of thousands of empires has been found if we are able to feel the grace of the eternal Wisdom. This is the happiness one has if they have been given hundreds of thousands of sovereignties if one has experienced that kind of freedom and power. This is freedom from a particular school of thought, a particular Master, or a particular set of practices. We are constantly working within hierarchical systems hoping to move our way up because higher status allows for more freedoms — the manager at a company versus the boss, a local politician versus a national politician — there are always levels of freedom that people are working towards. Every part of life has these positions and hierarchies of freedom and sovereignty. We can always level up. What would it mean to experience a kind of sovereignty and freedom that transcends these worldly pursuits by the hundreds of thousands? The Guru says that even if, for a single moment, through the eternal Wisdom, we are able to feel the all-pervasive One and the Nam (Identification with IkOankar), our minds and bodies will feel the coolness of that. We will feel relief. We will feel calm. We will feel steady. The Guru says that we receive this gift because of what has been written on our foreheads from the Origin. We receive this gift because our minds are attached to the One, to the Origin. We receive this gift by connecting with the Wisdom. We receive this gift by holding the feet of the eternal Wisdom, by seeking out the eternal Wisdom with great humility, in submission, in seeking mentorship, in seeking understanding from that Wisdom, in seeking to feel the Grace. This is the great effort.
O my mind! Attach your consciousness with the One. Without the One, all other efforts are only entanglements. The Guru says that moment is fruitful, that instant is fruitful, in which love is with the eternal IkOankar, in which we are able to feel that love. When our support becomes the Identification with the 1-Light, suffering, pain, and heat, do not touch us. They do not attach themselves to us. The Guru offers a physical analogy — the Wisdom pulls us out by the arm from the dreadful ocean, and it is through that help that we are able to cross the world-ocean. The Wisdom guides us and frees us from worldly entanglements, transactions, and temporariness. It is through this guidance that we are able to make our lives fruitful here and now. This happens through the effort of developing love with the eternal Wisdom, love with the One, and through the grace of the eternal Guru lifting us up through the support of the Identification.
O my mind! Attach your consciousness with the One. Without the One, all other efforts are only entanglements. The Guru says, that place is pleasant and pleasing and beautiful and filth-free, where the gathering of the truth-exemplars and the truth-exemplifying Wisdom is present. Who finds this gathering? Who finds the sanctuary of this company? Those who have found the complete Wisdom. Without the Wisdom, this gathering cannot be found because we do not yet know what we are looking for. We have not been mentored or coached on what kind of company we ought to seek. Those of us who find that gathering will find it because we have received an understanding of the complete Wisdom, and we will experience support and honor in that shelter. The Guru says those of us who are able to find this company of the virtuous beings and the virtuous Wisdom will build a home where there is neither death nor birth nor old age or frailty. If we follow the first three stanzas of this composition, if we make the effort we are being asked to make, it takes us to this space where we live in the sense of immortality, a space where there is the constant companionship of the truth-exemplars. This is now! This is anytime that we can discover it, not later when we die. We can live a different kind of life.
The Guru brings together ideas of the One, the Wisdom, and the company we keep, through which we seek Identification, through which we experience freedom. For anything we want to do in this world, we ask, listen, observe, and try. We also ask the experts; under their mentorship, we might get where we are trying to go. But this world has many pretenses. There are many who are selling the Wisdom and the Identification, too! People claim to have things all figured out. This is the business of things, the transactional nature of the world. We, as seekers, might get caught up in things all the time. But we still have to work and make an effort to develop ourselves — this is also part of the world play. This composition is about the One and the effort we ought to make to experience an understanding of the One. We understand the feeling but don’t always understand what effort we ought to make. In the first stanza, the Guru discusses the One and the Word of Wisdom. In the second, the Guru discusses the One and the Identification with the One. In the third stanza, the Guru discusses Identification, love for the eternal One, and the company of the truth-exemplars. These are the ways we can bring the One into our consciousness — grasping the One through the Word, feeling the Identification through the guidance of the Wisdom, developing a love for the One as the fruitful and auspicious thing, and entering the space where there are truth-exemplars. Will we seek that mentorship? Will we seek that company? Will we make that effort?
Guru Arjan says, O my mind! Attach your consciousness with the One. Without the One, all other efforts are only entanglements. The world and all its attachments are transient and meaningless. The Guru uses the One to refer to IkOankar (One Universal Integrative Force, 1Force, the One) in a way that universalizes this message, transcending schools of thought or philosophies. Without the one, everything else is a transaction. Without the One, everything is mithya, and maya. Maya is an attachment to the material and our relationships. Mithya often gets translated as false, which can be interpreted to mean temporary. It is not that the world is not real; it is just not absolutely Real. It is not that life on earth is false; therefore, we ought not to take part in it. It is instead that when we root ourselves only in the temporary, when we fool ourselves into clinging to things we think are “ours,” what we are doing is straying further and further away from IkOankar, the Eternal. And it is due to this distance from the eternal and this binding ourselves with the temporary that the world becomes mithya. Our lives become solely about accumulating things that will eventually perish, and everything we do becomes transactional. The Guru tells us that it is only the One that matters because without the One everything else is some other collection, accumulation, or transaction. Methods? Efforts? Belongings? Materials? Relationships? All is Maya, and all is attachment. This is why the mind is being urged to listen. We ought to clear our minds and our consciousnesses. If we do not do this, we will continue to build up our accumulations and transactions. We will continue to create attachments and temporariness and falsities.
O my mind! Attach your consciousness with the One. Without the One, all other efforts are only entanglements. The Guru says all things are received if IkOankar is understood and connected with. If we do this, we experience the “auspiciousness” of having everything. If we have grasped the One, this is equivalent to having all material things. This is how life and birth are fruitful and successful. If the eternal Word is uttered, if the infiniteness of the message is understood, life becomes fruitful. The mansion of the One is found through the Wisdom. This is the place where we seek to dwell. This is the space we want to live in. We get this written on our foreheads if we begin to feel the Command through the Wisdom and live in accordance with that Command. This is the role of the Word and the Wisdom. If we want to grasp the One, we ought to focus on that eternal Word with the help of the eternal Wisdom. This potentiality is written on every forehead.
O my mind! Attach your consciousness with the One. Without the One, all other efforts are only entanglements. The Guru says that we ought to consider that the happiness of hundreds of thousands of empires has been found if we are able to feel the grace of the eternal Wisdom. This is the happiness one has if they have been given hundreds of thousands of sovereignties if one has experienced that kind of freedom and power. This is freedom from a particular school of thought, a particular Master, or a particular set of practices. We are constantly working within hierarchical systems hoping to move our way up because higher status allows for more freedoms — the manager at a company versus the boss, a local politician versus a national politician — there are always levels of freedom that people are working towards. Every part of life has these positions and hierarchies of freedom and sovereignty. We can always level up. What would it mean to experience a kind of sovereignty and freedom that transcends these worldly pursuits by the hundreds of thousands? The Guru says that even if, for a single moment, through the eternal Wisdom, we are able to feel the all-pervasive One and the Nam (Identification with IkOankar), our minds and bodies will feel the coolness of that. We will feel relief. We will feel calm. We will feel steady. The Guru says that we receive this gift because of what has been written on our foreheads from the Origin. We receive this gift because our minds are attached to the One, to the Origin. We receive this gift by connecting with the Wisdom. We receive this gift by holding the feet of the eternal Wisdom, by seeking out the eternal Wisdom with great humility, in submission, in seeking mentorship, in seeking understanding from that Wisdom, in seeking to feel the Grace. This is the great effort.
O my mind! Attach your consciousness with the One. Without the One, all other efforts are only entanglements. The Guru says that moment is fruitful, that instant is fruitful, in which love is with the eternal IkOankar, in which we are able to feel that love. When our support becomes the Identification with the 1-Light, suffering, pain, and heat, do not touch us. They do not attach themselves to us. The Guru offers a physical analogy — the Wisdom pulls us out by the arm from the dreadful ocean, and it is through that help that we are able to cross the world-ocean. The Wisdom guides us and frees us from worldly entanglements, transactions, and temporariness. It is through this guidance that we are able to make our lives fruitful here and now. This happens through the effort of developing love with the eternal Wisdom, love with the One, and through the grace of the eternal Guru lifting us up through the support of the Identification.
O my mind! Attach your consciousness with the One. Without the One, all other efforts are only entanglements. The Guru says, that place is pleasant and pleasing and beautiful and filth-free, where the gathering of the truth-exemplars and the truth-exemplifying Wisdom is present. Who finds this gathering? Who finds the sanctuary of this company? Those who have found the complete Wisdom. Without the Wisdom, this gathering cannot be found because we do not yet know what we are looking for. We have not been mentored or coached on what kind of company we ought to seek. Those of us who find that gathering will find it because we have received an understanding of the complete Wisdom, and we will experience support and honor in that shelter. The Guru says those of us who are able to find this company of the virtuous beings and the virtuous Wisdom will build a home where there is neither death nor birth nor old age or frailty. If we follow the first three stanzas of this composition, if we make the effort we are being asked to make, it takes us to this space where we live in the sense of immortality, a space where there is the constant companionship of the truth-exemplars. This is now! This is anytime that we can discover it, not later when we die. We can live a different kind of life.
The Guru brings together ideas of the One, the Wisdom, and the company we keep, through which we seek Identification, through which we experience freedom. For anything we want to do in this world, we ask, listen, observe, and try. We also ask the experts; under their mentorship, we might get where we are trying to go. But this world has many pretenses. There are many who are selling the Wisdom and the Identification, too! People claim to have things all figured out. This is the business of things, the transactional nature of the world. We, as seekers, might get caught up in things all the time. But we still have to work and make an effort to develop ourselves — this is also part of the world play. This composition is about the One and the effort we ought to make to experience an understanding of the One. We understand the feeling but don’t always understand what effort we ought to make. In the first stanza, the Guru discusses the One and the Word of Wisdom. In the second, the Guru discusses the One and the Identification with the One. In the third stanza, the Guru discusses Identification, love for the eternal One, and the company of the truth-exemplars. These are the ways we can bring the One into our consciousness — grasping the One through the Word, feeling the Identification through the guidance of the Wisdom, developing a love for the One as the fruitful and auspicious thing, and entering the space where there are truth-exemplars. Will we seek that mentorship? Will we seek that company? Will we make that effort?
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