mārū mahalā 9.
ab mai kahā karaü rī māī.
sagal janamu bikhian siu khoiā simrio nāhi kan̖āī.1. rahāu.
kāl phās jab gar mahi melī tih sudhi sabh bisrāī.
rām nām binu yā saṅkaṭ mahi ko ab hot sahāī.1.
jo sampati apnī kari mānī chin mahi bhaī parāī.
kahu nānak yah soc rahī mani hari jasu kabhū na gāī.2.2.
-Guru Granth Sahib 1008
Guru Teghbahadar Sahib explains that after wasting one’s entire life in the pleasures of the senses, one must repent at the end of their physical life. Thus, individuals are advised to praise IkOankar (the Divine) while they exist in their physical bodies.
Commentary
Literal Translation
Interpretive Transcreation
Poetical Dimension
Calligraphy
Note: Maru is a rag (musical mode) that is often used to narrate heroic battles, evoking a mood of valiance and aggression, and strength. In this composition, the mind is the thing that is being battled, and the emphasis is on expressing the truth regardless of the consequences.
In the second composition, Guru Teghbahadar addresses the maternal figure, saying, O mother! What should I do now? I have lost my entire life in sensual pleasures; I did not remember the beautiful dark-skinned One. The Guru is showing us how to ask for help in our time of need, to be brave in our asking, to be fearless in our vulnerability. We tend not to reveal ourselves in this way because we are constantly worried about judgment, conditional love, and relationships. What if it changes the way people view us? What if it changes the way people treat us? The Guru invokes the maternal figure from whom we came, who loves us despite our flaws and missteps. This is the relationship we can invoke when we are in this state of introspection, when we want to bare our flaws and reflect on how we have spent our time.
O mother! What should I do now? The Guru continues in the first-person voice, one that we can identify with. When the messenger of Death arrived and put the noose around my neck, that caused me to forget all of my awareness. We tend to operate only with death in mind, or rather, the fear of death. We tend to go through life with no awareness until we are at the finish line, and then we experience great regret. We are sleepwalking through life, and death has overpowered us. This is desperate; this is the moment before the end. What can we do in this crisis? Without the Identification of the Beautiful, what else can help us?
O mother! What should I do now? The Guru continues; every asset that I have gathered, every single thing that I have considered to be mine, has become someone else’s in an instant. We have spent our lives accumulating relationships and possessions, things that we think define us, things that we think will be our legacy. But what we find in the end is that these things we used to call “mine” leave us in the blink of an eye — they were never really ours, to begin with. And this is the thought that remains in the mind. This is what we think to ourselves constantly: What have I done? Life is gone, and we never sang the praises of the 1-Light. We never lived in praise of the 1-Light. We know that we have spent our lives in vices and poisons and accumulation, we know that time has flown, we know that we have wasted the gift of this life, we know that we didn’t live in Remembrance even for a split second, and we know that death will overpower us. This is the worry that remains in the mind: now, what will happen to us?
The Guru shows us how to invoke the maternal figure to begin our introspection in vulnerability and bravery. This is how we can ask for help, and it is how we can engage in the sort of battle within ourselves, to steer ourselves towards Remembrance and praise, even as all of the things around us distract us and cause us to go astray. This is the human condition! Will we, even at this moment before the end, even having spent so much of our lives in forgetfulness, decide to begin on the path of praise anyway? Will we take the little time we have left to Identify with the Beautiful?
In the second composition, Guru Teghbahadar addresses the maternal figure, saying, O mother! What should I do now? I have lost my entire life in sensual pleasures; I did not remember the beautiful dark-skinned One. The Guru is showing us how to ask for help in our time of need, to be brave in our asking, to be fearless in our vulnerability. We tend not to reveal ourselves in this way because we are constantly worried about judgment, conditional love, and relationships. What if it changes the way people view us? What if it changes the way people treat us? The Guru invokes the maternal figure from whom we came, who loves us despite our flaws and missteps. This is the relationship we can invoke when we are in this state of introspection, when we want to bare our flaws and reflect on how we have spent our time.
O mother! What should I do now? The Guru continues in the first-person voice, one that we can identify with. When the messenger of Death arrived and put the noose around my neck, that caused me to forget all of my awareness. We tend to operate only with death in mind, or rather, the fear of death. We tend to go through life with no awareness until we are at the finish line, and then we experience great regret. We are sleepwalking through life, and death has overpowered us. This is desperate; this is the moment before the end. What can we do in this crisis? Without the Identification of the Beautiful, what else can help us?
O mother! What should I do now? The Guru continues; every asset that I have gathered, every single thing that I have considered to be mine, has become someone else’s in an instant. We have spent our lives accumulating relationships and possessions, things that we think define us, things that we think will be our legacy. But what we find in the end is that these things we used to call “mine” leave us in the blink of an eye — they were never really ours, to begin with. And this is the thought that remains in the mind. This is what we think to ourselves constantly: What have I done? Life is gone, and we never sang the praises of the 1-Light. We never lived in praise of the 1-Light. We know that we have spent our lives in vices and poisons and accumulation, we know that time has flown, we know that we have wasted the gift of this life, we know that we didn’t live in Remembrance even for a split second, and we know that death will overpower us. This is the worry that remains in the mind: now, what will happen to us?
The Guru shows us how to invoke the maternal figure to begin our introspection in vulnerability and bravery. This is how we can ask for help, and it is how we can engage in the sort of battle within ourselves, to steer ourselves towards Remembrance and praise, even as all of the things around us distract us and cause us to go astray. This is the human condition! Will we, even at this moment before the end, even having spent so much of our lives in forgetfulness, decide to begin on the path of praise anyway? Will we take the little time we have left to Identify with the Beautiful?
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