Maru Kaphi

Guru Nanak Sahib

In the third composition, Guru Nanak continues speaking with the voice of the seeker and says, neither do I know anyone is foolish, nor do I know anyone is wise. All people are operating in the Command, playing the game based on the cards they have been dealt. Though there might be a sense of an external difference between the wise and the foolish, the Light of IkOankar (One Universal Integrative Force, 1Force, the One) is within both of them. The seeker says, always dyed in the color of love of the Owner, IkOankar, I utter Nam (Identification with IkOankar) every day. The seeker continues by addressing IkOankar: O Wise One! I am a fool, but I devote to the Nam. You are the Creator; You are the Knower and the Seer. I can swim across the world-ocean only through Your Nam. 
 
O Wise One! I am a fool, but I devote to the Nam. How do those who have gone through this journey look in the world? How do those who are connected operate?  The Guru brings in Nam as the only way to swim across the world-ocean — the only way to make this life fruitful here and now is to constantly Identify with IkOankar. This is something that one lives and experiences and develops themselves towards through the help of the Wisdom. It is through this development that the seeker can say, I do not acknowledge anyone as foolish or smart because I am constantly drenched in Your color. Daily, I am in Your Nam. I am foolish but I am still in adoration of Your Nam. You are the Creator, the Knower, the Seer of all things, and it is only through Your Nam that I can become free. This Nam is what brings us out of our value judgments. 

O Wise One! I am a fool, but I devote to the Nam. The seeker understands that the foolish and the wise are actually one and the same, that all people are of the same light of IkOankar even as we separate them out into categories based on our own judgments. The real fool of all fools is the one who does not accept Nam — who does not Identify with IkOankar and devote themselves to that Identification. 
 
O Wise One! I am a fool, but I devote to the Nam. Where does one get this Nam? We receive Nam from the door of the Guru, from the Wisdom. Without the eternal Wisdom, Nam is not understood. We are unable to carry it within us. By following the guidance of the eternal Wisdom, Nam enters the mind and continues to dwell there. It is through this that we are able to keep the consciousness attached in a loving connection with IkOankar day and night. This is the condition of the one who is able to see the light in everyone — they are constantly following the eternal Wisdom, and they are not seeking anything anywhere else. 

O Wise One! I am a fool, but I devote to the Nam. The Guru then invokes those who are busy doing other things. Those who are engrossed in rule, color, form, wealth, and youth are gamblers. Bound in the Command, they are all players in this game of life who have been dealt certain things and who are fulfilling certain roles. The Guru likens life to a game of Chaupar, similar to chess. In this game, these gamblers have a craving or attachment to material objects and relationships as their one and only pawn. This is what moves them and drives them in all things. 

O Wise One! I am a fool, but I devote to the Nam. In this world, the beings who are lost in illusion are still considered clever and wise. They may be called Pandits, wise ones who know the Vedas, but they read like fools. They are foolish because they say they take care of the Vedas but are busy running after the elusive Maya, or attachment to the material and to our relationships. They forget the Nam. So too do the writers who are writing in their doubt or illusions. So too do the intellectuals and the philosophers. The Guru is making a statement on what is being sold to us as wisdom — the ones selling us wisdom, whether they be religious pandits or nonreligious intellectuals and philosophers, act wise and clever but they themselves are caught up in doubts. They are the poison-laden ones — poison being anything that takes us away from connection with the One. 

O Wise One! I am a fool, but I devote to the Nam. These foolish ones are like trying to till barren land, or planting a tree on the river bank — fruitless and unable to survive for long. They might put on white clothes to denote purity and enlightenment, but still the blackness of kohl soils that outward appearance, revealing them for who they truly are. Similarly in this world of desire, and anyone who enters it burns up due to pride. This is if we enter this world thinking that the house of desire has a sense of permanence. If we think that the material world and all of its illusions are eternal, then we will burn up due to our own pride and illusion. 

O Wise One! I am a fool, but I devote to the Nam. The Guru then asks, where is the constituency? Where are the rulers? There is no eternal mansion here. Anyone who is living between the earth and the sky, all beings who exist in this world, will eventually leave. Whoever is in duality, that being will depart. But whoever has the ladder of the eternal Wisdom will remain, becoming the seer of the Unseen, the dweller in the Unseen IkOankar. This is how we rise above temporariness. The guidance of the eternal Wisdom is what takes us to IkOankar, in all times and contexts. 

This composition is about the worldview of the one who lives in Nam, who can see the games of the world, and who does not blame the individuals who are players in this game, bound in the Command. It is about a person who is able to Identify with IkOankar, who is colored in the love of IkOankar, and thus sees the Light in all beings. This is how the seeker is able to understand the play, kill the ego, and refrain from making value judgments about others. They understand the games that people play, who abuse their privileges and purposefully misguide people, attempting to sell their version of wisdom to those seeking it. This is about understanding the only eternal Wisdom as the Guru, who can guide us out of our temporariness and into eternality. Will we make the effort to devote ourselves to the Nam, to change our perspectives, to stop placing judgment on others?