jaijāvantī mahalā 9.
rāmu bhaju rāmu bhaju janamu sirātu hai.
kahaü kahā bār bār samjhat nah kiu gavār.
binsat nah lagai bār ore sam gātu hai.1. rahāu.
sagal bharam ḍāri dehi gobind ko nāmu lehi.
anti bār saṅgi terai ihai eku jātu hai.1.
bikhiā bikhu jiu bisāri prabh kau jasu hīe dhāri.
nānak jan kahi pukāri aüsaru bihātu hai.2.2.
-Guru Granth Sahib 1352
Guru Teghbahadar Sahib emphasizes that human life is precious and wasted without reflecting on the virtues of the all-pervasive IkOankar (the Divine). The body is compared to an ephemeral hailstone because, in the end, only Nam (Identification with IkOankar) remains.
Commentary
Literal Translation
Interpretive Transcreation
Poetical Dimension
Calligraphy
In the second composition, Guru Teghbahadar says, sing praises of the Beautiful, sing praises of the Beautiful, life is passing away. What can I say to you again and again? Why do you not understand, O foolish one? This body is like a hailstone; it does not take even a moment to perish. The Guru uses this simple language to give us a wake-up call and an urging that we have heard many times before. We are urged to remember that life is passing and to spend our time singing the praises of the Beautiful One, IkOankar (One Universal Integrative Force, 1Force). The Guru compares the body to a hailstone, a thing that might seem big and heavy and sturdy but which takes very little time to melt into nothing. We are told this repeatedly, so the question is posed: why are you still not understanding this? What will it take for us to move out of our ignorance and stubbornness and into an understanding that shifts our behavior?
Sing praises of the Beautiful, sing praises of the Beautiful; life is passing away. The Guru urges us to drop all of our illusions and doubts, to throw away all things that might be causing confusion. This is not something that the Guru is saying will happen all on its own. We have to make the conscious and difficult decision to rid ourselves of these things, release them from our hands, and stop clinging to them. When we do this, we can pick up something else to hold onto: the Nam (Identification) of the Earth-Knower, IkOankar. We can Identify with the One in our daily lives, make that the thing that drives us, the thing we cling to. In the end, it is not the body that lasts. It is only Identification that will go with us. It is only Remembrance.
Sing praises of the Beautiful, sing praises of the Beautiful; life is passing away. The Guru says that Maya, or attachment to the material and to our relationships is like poison. It is poison that creates forgetfulness, it is poison that encompasses that which is temporary and causes doubts, and draws us away from IkOankar. This is a large category of things, and what is poisonous might differ from person to person. But whatever causes us doubts, deceptions, or confusions is what we ought to forget. The Guru says we can counter poison by bringing the praise of Prabhu into the heart. Again, Prabhu is invoked to reference a positional relationship that IkOankar has with all beings and things. Because even the most poisonous of poisons, even the most all-entangling, illusory, painful thing, has an antidote. And that antidote is IkOankar. The Guru ends with a cry on behalf of all of us, pleading with us to do the things we have been constantly urged to do because our opportunity is passing away, and time is running out.
We have delusions about the permanence of life and the permanence of the body, and these delusions act like poison, causing us to forget IkOankar. The Guru is urging us to drop these and make a conscious and concerted effort to stop grasping them. We have told ourselves that we know life is passing away, and we have figured out how to deal with it, but we haven’t. Even the ‘holiest’ and most ‘enlightened’ among us still convince themselves that the body is permanent or that they have solved their own temporariness. We make things much harder on ourselves than they need to be because we are addicted to that poison, to that forgetfulness. We complicate things for ourselves because we do not want to let go. We do not make room for the praises of IkOankar to dwell within us. We do not make space in our hands to hold onto anything else. It is scary and painful to confront a thing that is so addictive that it has convinced us we are exceptions to the rule of temporariness. But we do not have to do this alone. We can bring praises of the Beautiful, the One who is the antidote to this poison, within. And the One will help us walk the path of Remembrance. Will we drop that which we are grasping onto so tightly? Will we bring praises of the One within?
Sing praises of the Beautiful, sing praises of the Beautiful; life is passing away. The Guru urges us to drop all of our illusions and doubts, to throw away all things that might be causing confusion. This is not something that the Guru is saying will happen all on its own. We have to make the conscious and difficult decision to rid ourselves of these things, release them from our hands, and stop clinging to them. When we do this, we can pick up something else to hold onto: the Nam (Identification) of the Earth-Knower, IkOankar. We can Identify with the One in our daily lives, make that the thing that drives us, the thing we cling to. In the end, it is not the body that lasts. It is only Identification that will go with us. It is only Remembrance.
Sing praises of the Beautiful, sing praises of the Beautiful; life is passing away. The Guru says that Maya, or attachment to the material and to our relationships is like poison. It is poison that creates forgetfulness, it is poison that encompasses that which is temporary and causes doubts, and draws us away from IkOankar. This is a large category of things, and what is poisonous might differ from person to person. But whatever causes us doubts, deceptions, or confusions is what we ought to forget. The Guru says we can counter poison by bringing the praise of Prabhu into the heart. Again, Prabhu is invoked to reference a positional relationship that IkOankar has with all beings and things. Because even the most poisonous of poisons, even the most all-entangling, illusory, painful thing, has an antidote. And that antidote is IkOankar. The Guru ends with a cry on behalf of all of us, pleading with us to do the things we have been constantly urged to do because our opportunity is passing away, and time is running out.
We have delusions about the permanence of life and the permanence of the body, and these delusions act like poison, causing us to forget IkOankar. The Guru is urging us to drop these and make a conscious and concerted effort to stop grasping them. We have told ourselves that we know life is passing away, and we have figured out how to deal with it, but we haven’t. Even the ‘holiest’ and most ‘enlightened’ among us still convince themselves that the body is permanent or that they have solved their own temporariness. We make things much harder on ourselves than they need to be because we are addicted to that poison, to that forgetfulness. We complicate things for ourselves because we do not want to let go. We do not make room for the praises of IkOankar to dwell within us. We do not make space in our hands to hold onto anything else. It is scary and painful to confront a thing that is so addictive that it has convinced us we are exceptions to the rule of temporariness. But we do not have to do this alone. We can bring praises of the Beautiful, the One who is the antidote to this poison, within. And the One will help us walk the path of Remembrance. Will we drop that which we are grasping onto so tightly? Will we bring praises of the One within?
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