sundar mandar saiṇah jeṇ madhya hari kīrtanah.
mukte ramaṇ gobindah nānak labdhyaṅ baḍ bhāgaṇah.12.
-Guru Granth Sahib 1360
Guru Arjan Sahib describes a flaw-riddled body and the futile nature of pride in material attachment to the physical world. The seeker is encouraged to connect with the eternal IkOankar (the Divine), who removes diseases, sorrows, and sufferings, making way for a fruitful life. The precious gift of Nam is received in the company of virtuous beings and makes the seekers’ lives fruitful. This saloks encourages seekers to welcome the company of virtuous beings to unite with the all-pervasive IkOankar and find eternal comfort and happiness.
Commentary
Literal Translation
Interpretive Transcreation
Poetical Dimension
Calligraphy
In the twelfth salok, Guru Arjan says that the ones who are immersed in singing the virtues of the 1-Light, IkOankar (One Universal Integrative Force, 1Force, the One), their houses are beautiful and pleasant. These are the houses in which the beauty of the One is praised. Wherever there is no praise and only beauty, what good is that beauty? What good is beauty separated from its real support, its root? A beauty like that is fickle and short-lived, just like the fragrances the Guru referred to in the first salok. It is not a beauty that others can experience, as the fragrance and freedom referred to in the eleventh salok. In this beautiful and pleasant place, beauty is rooted to its origin through the singing of praises. Where there is singing of the virtues, there is freedom. However, this requires us to stop wandering and come into this kind of house with these kinds of people who remember the Earth-Knower. This kind of place, these kinds of people, are rare and difficult to find. And it is difficult to become like those in constant remembrance, in constant song.
And so the Guru says, those who remember the Earth-Knower are free, and this remembrance is found through great fortune. The invocation of the Earth-Knower asks us to expand our understanding of Earth or creation — to understand that freedom is accessible to everything we see in creation here and now, not just in this earthly experience of living and dying. We ask for the discovery of these people who understand this and the places in which they join to sing. We ask for the ability to make an effort to practice remembrance through singing praises. We ask to be in a community with the ones who are virtuous. We ask to sing — not just to recite, not just to chant — to sing the vastness of the 1-Light, the All-Pervasive, to understand through a kind of knowing that goes beyond the intellect. Are we seeking that discovery, that singing?
And so the Guru says, those who remember the Earth-Knower are free, and this remembrance is found through great fortune. The invocation of the Earth-Knower asks us to expand our understanding of Earth or creation — to understand that freedom is accessible to everything we see in creation here and now, not just in this earthly experience of living and dying. We ask for the discovery of these people who understand this and the places in which they join to sing. We ask for the ability to make an effort to practice remembrance through singing praises. We ask to be in a community with the ones who are virtuous. We ask to sing — not just to recite, not just to chant — to sing the vastness of the 1-Light, the All-Pervasive, to understand through a kind of knowing that goes beyond the intellect. Are we seeking that discovery, that singing?
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