Guru Teghbahadar Sahib reminds beings of the purpose of life, which is to remember and reflect on the virtues of IkOankar (the Divine). The
saloks describe how life is wasted in the entanglements of familial and material attachments distracting from the purpose of life. They inspire seekers to search for deeper meaning beyond the attachment to family and temporary material things and develop a relationship with IkOankar. These
saloks gently nudge seekers to live in awareness of IkOankar and see the entire world from that place of realization.
In the twenty-third stanza, Guru Teghbahadar says,
this world is a dream, a play! Without the presence of the Bhagvan, none of this is eternal.
We think that all of this is what matters—the things we can see in front of us, the lives we live in this world-play. But we forget that this world is like a dream, and within it, nothing is eternal or true. Until the consciousness moves toward the inner self, we do not develop insights, and because we do not take that inner journey toward insightfulness, we remain caught up in this dreamlike idea of the world. In this dream, it is our
material relationships which become the focus. Even when we
know that these things are temporary, even when we
know that the world is dreamlike, our attachment still consumes us. Our sense of the world in our small frames of reference still consumes us. Accumulating and accumulating things is still a goal that consumes us. We still work towards it. We still convince ourselves that this dreamlike world is the ultimate truth, and it keeps us from being able to gain insights that will help us come out of our sense of self. Instead, we continue to fall prey to i-iness or me-mineness, hunted by it in this dream. We get caught up in the things that result from this—negativities in our thinking and behavior, and a life without feeling the presence of
Bhagvan, the adorable One, here used as an epithet for
IkOankar (One Creative and Pervasive Force, 1Force, the One).
Guru Teghbahadar is gently shaking us awake as if to say,
come out of your dream! You are adoring and getting adored by so many things and people but the One who is to be adored will help you get out of this.
