The
saloks of Sheikh Farid
Ji guide the seeker towards life’s true purpose, the devotion to the one absolute Divine, IkOankar. In these saloks, he reminds us that our time in this world is finite; therefore, one must turn to IkOankar without delay. Yet, attachment to transient possessions and relationships causes many to forget this truth, becoming entangled in vices that lead to restlessness and inner turmoil. In contrast, those who cultivate virtues such as love, humility, patience, contentment, selfless service, and righteousness experience the bliss of connection with IkOankar even while living a householder’s life. Their life becomes serene and suffused with inner joy.
pharīdā jāṁ taü khaṭaṇ vel tāṁ tū ratā dunī siu.
marag savāī nīhi jāṁ bhariā tāṁ ladiā.8.
-Guru Granth Sahib 1378
Commentary
Literal Translation
Interpretive Transcreation
Poetical Dimension
Calligraphy
In the eighth stanza, Sheikh Farid says, O Farid! When it was your time for earning, then you were engrossed with the world. When we have the actual time to figure out how to make this life successful and fruitful, we end up caught up in worldly things and relationships instead. In an earlier stanza, Sheikh Farid reflected on regrets of wasting his time—if he had known the sesame seeds would be so few, that his breaths would be so limited, he would have been wiser with them. We are all on this journey from birth to death. We are all dealing with the preciousness of life. If we are only living to die, is that a successful or fruitful life? We have wasted all this time, steeped in forgetfulness. We could have spent it making efforts to tie ourselves more tightly to IkOankar (One Creative and Pervasive Force, 1Force, the One). We could have spent this time earning the profit of devotion.
Sheikh Farid continues, the foundation of death kept rising; when the cart was loaded, then it departed. The foundation of death is rising! We are seeing death approach us with each passing day. As we get older, that pace seems to quicken. Death begins to look as if it is racing toward us. Sheikh Farid says, in this moment, when so much time has passed, whatever is loaded onto our carts as our earnings in this life is what we take with us as the fruits of this time. If we fill our time well, if these breaths are spent well, we can build ourselves a storehouse of deeds and virtues. When we go, we can take these things of value with us. This is how we avoid being looted by the fear of death. This is how we earn, and we keep what we earn. Will we take advantage of this time to earn? Will we load our carts with things of value?
