bikhian siu kāhe racio nimakh na hohi udāsu.
kahu nānak bhaju hari manā parai na jam kī phās.2.
-Guru Granth Sahib 1426
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.
Commentary
Literal Translation
Interpretive Transcreation
Poetical Dimension
Calligraphy
In the second stanza, Guru Teghbahadar asks us: What happened? You are entangled in vices. Your human mind is driven by these vices. You are not unaffected by them even for a moment.
We spend our days getting up and doing the things that draw us further away from that inherent purpose of remembering the 1-Light. And we recognize this. We know it does not take much to do a bad thing; we know that it takes a lot to do a good thing, especially when we are immersed in poison — things which will kill us by their sheer negative influence. The Guru is reminding us that if we want to be with the Truth, with the Eternal, we must renounce those things which are false or temporary. What is not eternal? The ‘vices’ that the Guru mentions. These are temporary flavors that we have been enjoying, and now, they have taken over. Those temporary flavors are not necessarily all extreme on the spectrum of ‘bad’ things. Those same temporary flavors are the things that are a part of life. In fact, when we understand vices, we ought to understand them as the things that are a part of what it means to be human beings in the world. Our goal is not to rid ourselves of these vices; it is simply to release ourselves from the vices that control us. To wrestle with them and learn how to live in the world as humans who do not fall into entanglement. It is like being a bird in a cage. Once the bird is in the cage for long enough and likes what it is being fed, it forgets that it used to be free. It forgets that this is not what life is and instead gets used to a life of confinement without freedom.
What are the things that are caging us? What are the temporary flavors that are distracting us from the potential we all have to be free? What are the things that take us away from our original purpose?
Guru Teghbahadar urges us to think about these questions and reminds us to sing praise of the 1-Light, to remember the 1-Light actively, so that the fear of death does not drive us.
We spend our days getting up and doing the things that draw us further away from that inherent purpose of remembering the 1-Light. And we recognize this. We know it does not take much to do a bad thing; we know that it takes a lot to do a good thing, especially when we are immersed in poison — things which will kill us by their sheer negative influence. The Guru is reminding us that if we want to be with the Truth, with the Eternal, we must renounce those things which are false or temporary. What is not eternal? The ‘vices’ that the Guru mentions. These are temporary flavors that we have been enjoying, and now, they have taken over. Those temporary flavors are not necessarily all extreme on the spectrum of ‘bad’ things. Those same temporary flavors are the things that are a part of life. In fact, when we understand vices, we ought to understand them as the things that are a part of what it means to be human beings in the world. Our goal is not to rid ourselves of these vices; it is simply to release ourselves from the vices that control us. To wrestle with them and learn how to live in the world as humans who do not fall into entanglement. It is like being a bird in a cage. Once the bird is in the cage for long enough and likes what it is being fed, it forgets that it used to be free. It forgets that this is not what life is and instead gets used to a life of confinement without freedom.
What are the things that are caging us? What are the temporary flavors that are distracting us from the potential we all have to be free? What are the things that take us away from our original purpose?
Guru Teghbahadar urges us to think about these questions and reminds us to sing praise of the 1-Light, to remember the 1-Light actively, so that the fear of death does not drive us.
