Bani Mahala 9 - Rag Sorathi

Guru Teghbahadar Sahib

In the third composition, Guru Teghbahadar says, O mind! Which false thinking have you adopted? You are absorbed in the taste of another’s spouse and slander; you did not practice the devotion of the Beautiful One. There comes a point in our lives when we want to understand the way to freedom. We get tired of wandering around and running after Maya, or attachment to the material and relationships. We want to be free mentally, physically, spiritually, and politically. When we have decided to pursue that kind of freedom, we attempt to figure out how to get there, given what our present conditions might be in life. It requires great effort, so how many of us are actually able to walk on this path towards freedom? We are dealing with so much that it sometimes seems impossible even to take a step. We are so steeped in Maya that we find ourselves enjoying it. Our possessions and our relationships are what catch us — we lie and deceive for them and accumulate for them, and when our last breath leaves, we are told we cannot keep them, and they cannot keep us. Our minds are steeped in false or negative thinking, and we cannot seem to find a way out. We do not live in remembrance of the Beautiful, and we do not serve the Wisdom or the wisdom-oriented. 
 
O mind! Which false thinking have you adopted? The Guru elaborates on the consequences of our conditions. We have not understood the path to freedom and instead have been running around to accumulate more and more and more. We think this accumulation is what will eventually free us — we tell ourselves that if we just make a little more money or get the promotion we are seeking or buy the car we have been wanting, we will feel something like freedom, and we will be able to stop needing to run around for accumulation. This is not freedom. The Guru reminds us of the temporariness of all these things. No one is with anyone in the end; no possessions stay with us, no relationships stay with us — all we have done is uselessly bound ourselves up in our own pursuit of Maya. We did not work to figure out the way to freedom. 
 
O mind! Which false thinking have you adopted? We have not sung the praises of the 1-Light. We have not inculcated the virtues of the One, we have not served the Wisdom either internally or externally, and no deep knowledge has been born within us. Serving the Wisdom encompasses both the act of praise of the One and the chiseling of our inner world and consciousness to reflect those virtues and the external acts of service that we do for others when we are reflecting those virtues in the world. It is within our hearts that the One without blemish resides, and yet, we run around outside looking for the One in the forests. We think we must go somewhere else to feel that connection, to find that connection with the One who is beyond our human flaws. But that One is within us — the question is, how do we feel that presence?  
 
O mind! Which false thinking have you adopted? The Guru continues with a description of our conditions. We have spent many lives wandering or wandering through different lives or phases, even in our present singular lifetimes. We have become exhausted and lost, and still, even after so much wandering, we have not been able to find steadiness or an understanding that is constant, and that remains.
 
If we can sing the praises of the 1-Light, we can live in an elevated state of existence. This is the constant wisdom that we are being reminded of, and we know where to get it and how. We might think we are past the point of no return, but we are graced simply by being in these bodies, humans in the world. We are human beings and are miserable in our conditions, but we do not have to be. The Guru reminds us that we have received these rare human bodies and the opportunities they allow for. So why aren’t we using them to live in remembrance? Why aren’t we using them to live in devotion?