ikoaṅkār sati nāmu kartā purakhu nirbhaü nirvairu akāl mūrati ajūnī saibhaṅ gur prasādi.
rāgu jaijāvantī mahalā 9.
rāmu simari rāmu simari ihai terai kāji hai.
māiā ko saṅgu tiāgu prabh jū kī sarani lāgu.
jagat sukh mānu mithiā jhūṭho sabh sāju hai.1. rahāu.
supne jiu dhanu pachānu kāhe pari karat mānu.
bārū kī bhīti jaise basudhā ko rāju hai.1.
nānaku janu kahatu bāt binasi jaihai tero gātu.
chinu chinu kari gaïo kālu taise jātu āju hai.2.1.
-Guru Granth Sahib 1352
Guru Teghbahadar Sahib cautions seekers that material objects and their comforts are temporary. Therefore, avoiding attachment and remembering IkOankar (the Divine), the source of all these material gifts, is advised. This Sabad reminds seekers to remember IkOankar, who created the entire material and its pleasures.
Commentary
Literal Translation
Interpretive Transcreation
Poetical Dimension
Calligraphy
Jaijavanti is a rag (musical mode) that is often used to express two opposite feelings, usually to an extreme degree. Those feelings often encompass the positive feeling of accomplishment and victory and the negative feeling of having lost something. In this series of compositions, Guru Teghbahadar shares the feeling of being connected with Ram, the Beautiful One, in contrast with the feeling of being disconnected from Ram.
In the first composition, Guru Teghbahadar says, remember the Beautiful, remember the Beautiful, only this is of use in your deeds. Renounce the company of Maya, material attachment, and attach yourself to the sanctuary of IkOankar. Consider the comforts of the world to be false. The entire creation is false. Remembrance of the Beautiful is the only task we have, the only thing we ought to do. There are so many things that we call material attachment, or Maya — our relationships with friends and family, power, wealth. There are so many things we do to attach ourselves to the temporary. But there is only one thing worth our efforts, worth being driven by, worth attaching ourselves to: the Remembrance of the Beautiful. The Guru urges us to get rid of the company of Maya and instead come into the sanctuary of Prabhu. The Guru invokes Prabhu as one of the many names of IkOankar (One Universal Integrative Force, 1Force, the One). Prabhu is a name that invokes the royal and godlike nature of One whose job is to fulfill a particular role. This is not about an obligation that IkOankar has to us. It is about the intrinsic goodness present in IkOankar that the Guru is invoking. This is the One who is capable of helping us when no one else can. This is the One under whom even Maya, which has a power of its own, is subject. We may have a hard time ridding ourselves of Maya on our own. But we can go into the sanctuary of the One who has power over even this all-entangling attachment. Finally, the Guru urges us to consider the entire world to be mithya. 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. All of the things we see, as decorated as they are, as beautiful as they may be, are not real with a capital ‘R.’ The only thing that is Real and Eternal and Beautiful is IkOankar, the Beautiful One, so why not remember That One?
Remember the Beautiful, remember the Beautiful, only this is of use in your deeds. The Guru continues along this line of reflection, emphasizing the temporariness of all that we consider eternal. Wealth and money are a dream, fickle, and heavy with endings. So why is it that we take so much pride in these things? The kingdom of earth, rule on earth, political power — it is all like a wall of sand. We may spend our time amassing what we can, building up what we think is an empire, collecting money and power, and trying to establish ourselves, and it might even look like something powerful and lasting. We might tell ourselves that even as money goes, our power and reputation will last long after we physically go. But eventually, it all disappears, whether in the blink of an eye or a slow crumbling. These fleeting things ought not to be the sources of our motivation; they ought not to be what drives us.
Remember the Beautiful, remember the Beautiful, only this is of use in your deeds. The Guru reminds us that our bodies will also perish, that just as yesterday disappeared moment by moment, today will also go. If we are only after money and power and things related to this physical world and our physical bodies, we will continue to be in the company of Maya, or attachment to the material and to our relationships. We will continue to create a world around us rooted in the temporary instead of in the Eternal. If we are in the company of Prabhu, if we enter the sanctuary of the One, we will not worry about how yesterday passed or how today will pass. Those things actually bother us more when pursuing worldly pleasures and temporary accumulations. This is where so much of our anxiety comes from! We worry about time passing, losing time, how we are spending our time, whether or not we are being productive enough, whether or not we are using it wisely to get to some other material goal. We take stock of what happened yesterday, what is happening today, we worry about what will happen tomorrow. We are constantly looking only at the things that are immediately in front of or behind us, and it is because of this, our perspectives are small. If we are focused only on that which is temporary and fleeting, that temporariness compounds on itself with the passing of time. If we root ourselves instead in the Eternal, if we take time to engage in Remembrance, the days actually slow down, and even when they pass, this is not a thing that causes alarm because we understand that what we see in this world is only an external manifestation, not what is Real.
The Guru is asking us to think about what we are attaching ourselves to. What is it that we are keeping in our company? If we are keeping the company of attachment, we are not making room for Remembrance. If we are believing the temporary to be permanent, we are not making room for Remembrance. If we are rooted only in the physical and the fleeting, we are not engaging in Remembrance. The Guru is urging us to reflect on our own conditions: what is it that we must forget to walk the path of Remembrance?
In the first composition, Guru Teghbahadar says, remember the Beautiful, remember the Beautiful, only this is of use in your deeds. Renounce the company of Maya, material attachment, and attach yourself to the sanctuary of IkOankar. Consider the comforts of the world to be false. The entire creation is false. Remembrance of the Beautiful is the only task we have, the only thing we ought to do. There are so many things that we call material attachment, or Maya — our relationships with friends and family, power, wealth. There are so many things we do to attach ourselves to the temporary. But there is only one thing worth our efforts, worth being driven by, worth attaching ourselves to: the Remembrance of the Beautiful. The Guru urges us to get rid of the company of Maya and instead come into the sanctuary of Prabhu. The Guru invokes Prabhu as one of the many names of IkOankar (One Universal Integrative Force, 1Force, the One). Prabhu is a name that invokes the royal and godlike nature of One whose job is to fulfill a particular role. This is not about an obligation that IkOankar has to us. It is about the intrinsic goodness present in IkOankar that the Guru is invoking. This is the One who is capable of helping us when no one else can. This is the One under whom even Maya, which has a power of its own, is subject. We may have a hard time ridding ourselves of Maya on our own. But we can go into the sanctuary of the One who has power over even this all-entangling attachment. Finally, the Guru urges us to consider the entire world to be mithya. 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. All of the things we see, as decorated as they are, as beautiful as they may be, are not real with a capital ‘R.’ The only thing that is Real and Eternal and Beautiful is IkOankar, the Beautiful One, so why not remember That One?
Remember the Beautiful, remember the Beautiful, only this is of use in your deeds. The Guru continues along this line of reflection, emphasizing the temporariness of all that we consider eternal. Wealth and money are a dream, fickle, and heavy with endings. So why is it that we take so much pride in these things? The kingdom of earth, rule on earth, political power — it is all like a wall of sand. We may spend our time amassing what we can, building up what we think is an empire, collecting money and power, and trying to establish ourselves, and it might even look like something powerful and lasting. We might tell ourselves that even as money goes, our power and reputation will last long after we physically go. But eventually, it all disappears, whether in the blink of an eye or a slow crumbling. These fleeting things ought not to be the sources of our motivation; they ought not to be what drives us.
Remember the Beautiful, remember the Beautiful, only this is of use in your deeds. The Guru reminds us that our bodies will also perish, that just as yesterday disappeared moment by moment, today will also go. If we are only after money and power and things related to this physical world and our physical bodies, we will continue to be in the company of Maya, or attachment to the material and to our relationships. We will continue to create a world around us rooted in the temporary instead of in the Eternal. If we are in the company of Prabhu, if we enter the sanctuary of the One, we will not worry about how yesterday passed or how today will pass. Those things actually bother us more when pursuing worldly pleasures and temporary accumulations. This is where so much of our anxiety comes from! We worry about time passing, losing time, how we are spending our time, whether or not we are being productive enough, whether or not we are using it wisely to get to some other material goal. We take stock of what happened yesterday, what is happening today, we worry about what will happen tomorrow. We are constantly looking only at the things that are immediately in front of or behind us, and it is because of this, our perspectives are small. If we are focused only on that which is temporary and fleeting, that temporariness compounds on itself with the passing of time. If we root ourselves instead in the Eternal, if we take time to engage in Remembrance, the days actually slow down, and even when they pass, this is not a thing that causes alarm because we understand that what we see in this world is only an external manifestation, not what is Real.
The Guru is asking us to think about what we are attaching ourselves to. What is it that we are keeping in our company? If we are keeping the company of attachment, we are not making room for Remembrance. If we are believing the temporary to be permanent, we are not making room for Remembrance. If we are rooted only in the physical and the fleeting, we are not engaging in Remembrance. The Guru is urging us to reflect on our own conditions: what is it that we must forget to walk the path of Remembrance?
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