ikoaṅkār satigur prasādi.
rāgu basantu hinḍol mahalā 9.
sādho ihu tanu mithiā jānaü.
yā bhītari jo rāmu basatu hai sāco tāhi pachāno.1. rahāu.
ihu jagu hai sampati supne kī dekhi kahā aiḍāno.
saṅgi tihārai kachū na cālai tāhi kahā lapṭāno.1.
ustati nindā doū parhari hari kīrati uri āno.
jan nānak sabh hī mai pūran ek purakh bhagvāno.2.1.
-Guru Granth Sahib 1186
Guru Teghbahadar Sahib emphasizes the sheer brevity of all existing material, including the human body. Where only IkOankar (the Divine) is eternal, seekers are encouraged to forego the greed of materialism and foster their adoration for IkOankar instead, who dwells within all. This Sabad encourages seekers to nurture a relationship with the eternal IkOankar.
Commentary
Literal Translation
Interpretive Transcreation
Poetical Dimension
Calligraphy
Basant is a rag (musical mode) that is often used to invoke festivity and a season of newness, change, and preparation for an eventual and inevitable blooming. Basant is also a season, important in folk culture as people bid farewell to the cold winter season and prepare for spring.
In the first composition, Guru Teghbahadar says, Virtuous people! Know this body to be false. The Beautiful, who dwells in this body, recognize That One to be true. The Guru encourages us even in the beginning address, pointing out the potential we have to inculcate the virtues of IkOankar (One Universal Integrative Force, 1Force, the One) and become virtuous, despite the flawed understandings we may be holding onto. One of these understandings is that the body is an eternal thing, that it is Real with a capital ‘R,’ and that it will not go anywhere. The Guru uses the word mithya to describe these bodies. Mithya often gets translated as false, which can be interpreted to mean temporary. It is not that the body is not real; it is just not absolutely Real. And the lie we tend to tell ourselves is that these bodies will last, that they are eternal and unchanging. When we cling to this temporary body, we stray further and further away from IkOankar, the Eternal. The Guru reminds us that the only thing that is Real and Eternal and Beautiful is IkOankar, the Beautiful One who dwells within us.
Virtuous people! Know this body to be false. The Guru continues this line of thought, looking at yet another thing we have told ourselves lies about: the world at large. The lie we live about the world is similar to the lie we live about our bodies – we think it is eternal and Real. But, the Guru reminds us, this world is like property in a dream, there one minute and gone the next, real in dreams but unreal in wakefulness. So the question comes: knowing this about the world, seeing that it is temporary and fleeting, why do we show pride? Why do we look at all we have in this world and use it as justification for our arrogance? Don’t we know that these things will not last? The Guru then tells us more directly that nothing goes along with us when we go, when these temporary bodies do what they must, and then perish. So why are we clinging to these things? Why are we so entangled?
Virtuous people! Know this body to be false. The Guru says that if we can renounce both praise and slander, both the positive and the negative, within ourselves, we will be able to bring praises of the 1-Light into our hearts. This mention of praise and slander is not just about other people and what they might say about us. It also refers to the praise and slander that we hold within us, the positive and the negative ways in which we interact with the world around us, the ways we assign value to the things around us. The Guru is urging us to rid ourselves of these two opposing things so that we can invite the praise of the 1-Light to dwell within. This cleaning of the insides, this preparation for the arrival of the 1-Light, the Complete One, the Beautiful, is familiar to all of us as the physical tidying we might do before a guest arrives or the spring cleaning we do as the seasons change. We want to make the home in our hearts worthy of the arrival of the One. And so we must put in work. When that One arrives, we recognize the eternal, and until then, until we are able to invite praises of the One within, we will continue to think these bodies and this world are eternal. We will continue to live that lie. We will continue to superfluously divide things up within us, creating binaries where there ought not to be any. But when we are able to bring the Praise within, we will bring completeness within. We will find wholeness in the Complete One, who has always pervaded in everyone. It is not that the Complete One must be invited in. It is that we are not able to see wholeness, and until we can see it and feel it, we will not be able to live it.
When the Beautiful is dwelling within, we will understand Oneness and completeness; we will see completeness and perfection in all; we will come out of the lies we have been telling ourselves. We will find springlike festivity as the seasons within our hearts finally change. Will we fulfill our potentials as virtuous beings, ridding ourselves of binaries and divisions and otherness, letting go of the temporary and clinging instead to That which is Eternal? Will we move with the changing seasons and prepare ourselves for spring, for blooming, for completeness?
In the first composition, Guru Teghbahadar says, Virtuous people! Know this body to be false. The Beautiful, who dwells in this body, recognize That One to be true. The Guru encourages us even in the beginning address, pointing out the potential we have to inculcate the virtues of IkOankar (One Universal Integrative Force, 1Force, the One) and become virtuous, despite the flawed understandings we may be holding onto. One of these understandings is that the body is an eternal thing, that it is Real with a capital ‘R,’ and that it will not go anywhere. The Guru uses the word mithya to describe these bodies. Mithya often gets translated as false, which can be interpreted to mean temporary. It is not that the body is not real; it is just not absolutely Real. And the lie we tend to tell ourselves is that these bodies will last, that they are eternal and unchanging. When we cling to this temporary body, we stray further and further away from IkOankar, the Eternal. The Guru reminds us that the only thing that is Real and Eternal and Beautiful is IkOankar, the Beautiful One who dwells within us.
Virtuous people! Know this body to be false. The Guru continues this line of thought, looking at yet another thing we have told ourselves lies about: the world at large. The lie we live about the world is similar to the lie we live about our bodies – we think it is eternal and Real. But, the Guru reminds us, this world is like property in a dream, there one minute and gone the next, real in dreams but unreal in wakefulness. So the question comes: knowing this about the world, seeing that it is temporary and fleeting, why do we show pride? Why do we look at all we have in this world and use it as justification for our arrogance? Don’t we know that these things will not last? The Guru then tells us more directly that nothing goes along with us when we go, when these temporary bodies do what they must, and then perish. So why are we clinging to these things? Why are we so entangled?
Virtuous people! Know this body to be false. The Guru says that if we can renounce both praise and slander, both the positive and the negative, within ourselves, we will be able to bring praises of the 1-Light into our hearts. This mention of praise and slander is not just about other people and what they might say about us. It also refers to the praise and slander that we hold within us, the positive and the negative ways in which we interact with the world around us, the ways we assign value to the things around us. The Guru is urging us to rid ourselves of these two opposing things so that we can invite the praise of the 1-Light to dwell within. This cleaning of the insides, this preparation for the arrival of the 1-Light, the Complete One, the Beautiful, is familiar to all of us as the physical tidying we might do before a guest arrives or the spring cleaning we do as the seasons change. We want to make the home in our hearts worthy of the arrival of the One. And so we must put in work. When that One arrives, we recognize the eternal, and until then, until we are able to invite praises of the One within, we will continue to think these bodies and this world are eternal. We will continue to live that lie. We will continue to superfluously divide things up within us, creating binaries where there ought not to be any. But when we are able to bring the Praise within, we will bring completeness within. We will find wholeness in the Complete One, who has always pervaded in everyone. It is not that the Complete One must be invited in. It is that we are not able to see wholeness, and until we can see it and feel it, we will not be able to live it.
When the Beautiful is dwelling within, we will understand Oneness and completeness; we will see completeness and perfection in all; we will come out of the lies we have been telling ourselves. We will find springlike festivity as the seasons within our hearts finally change. Will we fulfill our potentials as virtuous beings, ridding ourselves of binaries and divisions and otherness, letting go of the temporary and clinging instead to That which is Eternal? Will we move with the changing seasons and prepare ourselves for spring, for blooming, for completeness?
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