Under Rag Sarang, Guru Teghbahadar has revealed four Sabads, which are recorded on pages 1231-1232 of the Guru Granth Sahib. All four Sabads comprise of two stanzas each. The stanza of rahau in each Sabad is separate from these stanzas.
ikoaṅkār satigur prasādi. rāgu sāraṅg mahalā 9. hari binu tero ko na sahāī. kāṁ kī māt pitā sut banitā ko kāhū ko bhāī.1. rahāu. dhanu dharnī aru sampati sagrī jo mānio apnāī. tan
In some manuscripts, the word ‘tanu’ (body) is also found, which seems to be accurate as it is a nominative case.
chūṭai kachu saṅgi na cālai kahā tāhi lapṭāī.1. dīn daïāl sadā dukh bhanjan tā siu ruci na baḍhāī. nānak kahat jagat sabh mithiā jiu supnā raināī.2.1. -Guru Granth Sahib 1231 Sarang is a rag (musical mode) associated with the summer season or the late afternoon. It is the time of day when humans in the subcontinent are heavy with the heat of the day; they are napping to escape the sun, exhausted, and allowing themselves to be exhausted. Sarang is a simple rag and conveys easily relatable and digestible ideas.
In the first composition, Guru Teghbahadar addresses the self and says,
other than the 1-Light, no one is your support. Who is anyone’s mother, father, son, wife? Who is anyone’s brother? The Guru begins with a simple statement, reminding us that despite feeling supported by human relationships, none of these relationships are eternal. The 1-Light is the only consistent and steady support we have. The Guru then poses a rhetorical question about our familial relationships, urging us to think about whether or not we really belong to each other in the ways we might think, whether we have assigned eternality to things that have an end.
Other than the 1-Light, no one is your support. The Guru continues to urge us to think about our relationship to the things in the material world — wealth, land, and property. These are the things we think are ours. These are the things that drive us. So much stress and anxiety are caused by worrying about our wealth — whether it is enough, whether it can sustain us, whether it is impressive to our friends and family. So much stress and anxiety are caused by worrying about our land and our homes — whether they are big enough, whether they are paid off, whether they are good investments, whether they are impressive to our friends and family. Everything that we have a relationship of ownership with is ultimately something we are deeply afraid of losing. Everything we have is a thing we worry about multiplying or maintaining. So, the Guru reminds us, these things do not go with us when we go. These are the things we wrap ourselves around and the things that wrap themselves around us — the things we center ourselves on and the things that bind us. And so the question comes,
why are we clinging to them?
Other than the 1-Light, no one is your support. The Guru contrasts the fleeting temporal material world with the one Eternal, IkOankar (One Universal Integrative Force, 1Force, the One). IkOankar is the Benefactor of the poor, the Remover of suffering. These are things we know about the One. And yet, the Guru says, we have not even developed an
interest in the One. We have not even done this very cursory noncommittal thing of being
interested in IkOankar. Instead, we are wrapped up in that which binds us, these material things. The Guru says that because we have prioritized our relationship to temporary, the entire world is
mithya, just like a dream.
Mithya often gets translated as false, which can be interpreted to mean temporary. It is not that the world is not real; it is just not absolutely Real. It is not that life on earth is false and, therefore, we ought not to take part in it. It is instead that when we root ourselves only in
the temporary, when we fool ourselves into clinging to things we think are “ours,” what we are doing is straying further and further away from IkOankar, the Eternal. And it is due to this distance from the eternal and this binding ourselves with the temporary that the world becomes
mithya. Our lives become solely about accumulating things that will eventually perish instead of the eternal thing:
Nam (Identification).
Every dream must end, and the longer we stay in a state of numbness and self-ignorance, the longer the world around us will be
mithya, and the more painful our awakening is. In that awakening, we understand the world constantly changing, ever-shifting underneath our feet. And that the only steady and eternal thing, the only Reality with a capital ‘r,’ the only Real is IkOankar. So the question is, will we keep our world
mithya, or will we shift our perspective and root ourselves in the Eternal? Will we identify even this ever-changing reality with the steadiness and infinitude of the One?
In some manuscripts, the word ‘tanu’ (body) is also found, which seems to be accurate as it is a nominative case.
