ikoaṅkār satigur prasādi.
rāgu gaüṛī mahalā 9.
sādho man kā mānu tiāgaü.
kāmu krodhu saṅgati durjan kī tā te ahinisi bhāgaü.1. rahāu.
sukhu dukhu dono sam kari jānai aüru mānu apmānā.
harakh sog te rahai atītā tini jagi tatu pachānā.1.
ustati nindā doū tiāgai khojai padu nirbānā.
jan nānak ihu khelu kaṭhanu hai kinhūṁ gurmukhi jānā.2.1.
-Guru Granth Sahib 219
Guru Teghbahadar Sahib inspires people to avoid vices and dualities of comfort-pain, happiness-sadness, praise-slander, honor-dishonor, etc. Wise people avoid these vices and connect with IkOankar (the Divine). This Sabad encourages seekers to nurture this precious gift of life by inculcating the virtues of IkOankar.
Commentary
Literal Translation
Interpretive Transcreation
Poetical Dimension
Calligraphy
Gauri is a rag (musical mode) that is often used to invoke the winter season and the afternoon period when the sun is strongest. It communicates a feeling of pain or the pang of separation that is either very long or permanent. In the Guru Granth Sahib, this emotion of the pang of separation is coupled with hope and the understanding that even if this pain is long and difficult, it can still be overcome when the one feels the One in their consciousness.
GAURI 1
In the first composition, Guru Teghbahadar says, O wise ones! Renounce the pride of mind. Lust, anger, and the company of people of bad behavior run away from these things day and night. Those who are in the company of lust and wrath are the people of bad or negative behavior, and the Guru is leading us to think about what we have chosen to keep the company of. How have we constructed our communities and relationships? Are we keeping the company of the things that cause us to behave negatively? Are our influences lust, wrath, and people who have made a habit out of bad behavior? We are urged not to be in the company of these negative influences and to renounce the pride or stubbornness of our minds. Why is the Guru asking us to renounce our pride and stubbornness? Maybe we think that we are exceptions to the rule — that we can keep the company of these negative influences and somehow resist or withstand them. This is rooted in our own pride and stubbornness, an unwillingness to ask for help, and a stubborn belief that we can rise above these things without fundamentally changing anything about our thought process and our surroundings. But, importantly, the Guru addresses us as wise ones. We may be immersed in the pride of our minds and keep the company of lust and wrath and people of bad behavior, and we may be intensely stubborn in this choice, but we have the potential to be wise and change our current states.
O wise ones! Renounce the pride of mind. The Guru says that the one who considers pain and comfort as the same, as well as honor and dishonor, who remains detached from happiness and grief, is the one who has understood the essence of the world. This is about our behaviors in response to the various ups and downs of emotion and experience of being humans in the world. Those who are able to stay steady and detached from those driving emotions and feelings are the ones who have understood the essence of the world while still living in the world. It is not that being detached means one does not feel anything at all; instead, these feelings do not drive one. One does not find their behavior affected by these feelings. This detachment asks for participation in the world while steadying ourselves in something above the base emotions and urges of the world so that the ever-fluctuating emotions of the human experience do not touch us.
O wise ones! Renounce the pride of mind. The Guru says that the one who forsakes both praise and slander is the one who seeks the state of freedom. This is a difficult game: rise above these opposites that are a part of our everyday lives and transcend them into a free existence. This is a freedom that is experienced while we are alive — a way of being in the world without being in the company of lust and wrath and people of bad behavior, without being driven by our emotions, without the extremities of our own feelings. This is how we discover how to live in freedom, and it is a hard game, but it can be done through the Wisdom, through becoming Wisdom-centered. To do this, we have to renounce the pride of our minds, the stubbornness, and the ego that make us think we are already above these things or that we can deal with them independently. This cannot happen just by talking about it or thinking about it. The move from being mind-centered or self-centered to being Wisdom-centered is not easy, and Wisdom is our guide.
We live in a world where various ideas of freedom or salvation or liberation are bountiful, the most common idea being that of freedom upon death. But the Guru is showing us a different ideal — as a state of freedom in the world, freedom while we are still alive, the freedom that comes when we can stop being driven by our emotions and stubborn pride. We all have the potential to experience this freedom as the wise ones. The question is just whether we will do the brave and difficult work of introspection and reflection and make tangible steps away from things as they are now into what they could be. Will we take those steps away from mind-centeredness and toward wisdom-centeredness?
GAURI 1
In the first composition, Guru Teghbahadar says, O wise ones! Renounce the pride of mind. Lust, anger, and the company of people of bad behavior run away from these things day and night. Those who are in the company of lust and wrath are the people of bad or negative behavior, and the Guru is leading us to think about what we have chosen to keep the company of. How have we constructed our communities and relationships? Are we keeping the company of the things that cause us to behave negatively? Are our influences lust, wrath, and people who have made a habit out of bad behavior? We are urged not to be in the company of these negative influences and to renounce the pride or stubbornness of our minds. Why is the Guru asking us to renounce our pride and stubbornness? Maybe we think that we are exceptions to the rule — that we can keep the company of these negative influences and somehow resist or withstand them. This is rooted in our own pride and stubbornness, an unwillingness to ask for help, and a stubborn belief that we can rise above these things without fundamentally changing anything about our thought process and our surroundings. But, importantly, the Guru addresses us as wise ones. We may be immersed in the pride of our minds and keep the company of lust and wrath and people of bad behavior, and we may be intensely stubborn in this choice, but we have the potential to be wise and change our current states.
O wise ones! Renounce the pride of mind. The Guru says that the one who considers pain and comfort as the same, as well as honor and dishonor, who remains detached from happiness and grief, is the one who has understood the essence of the world. This is about our behaviors in response to the various ups and downs of emotion and experience of being humans in the world. Those who are able to stay steady and detached from those driving emotions and feelings are the ones who have understood the essence of the world while still living in the world. It is not that being detached means one does not feel anything at all; instead, these feelings do not drive one. One does not find their behavior affected by these feelings. This detachment asks for participation in the world while steadying ourselves in something above the base emotions and urges of the world so that the ever-fluctuating emotions of the human experience do not touch us.
O wise ones! Renounce the pride of mind. The Guru says that the one who forsakes both praise and slander is the one who seeks the state of freedom. This is a difficult game: rise above these opposites that are a part of our everyday lives and transcend them into a free existence. This is a freedom that is experienced while we are alive — a way of being in the world without being in the company of lust and wrath and people of bad behavior, without being driven by our emotions, without the extremities of our own feelings. This is how we discover how to live in freedom, and it is a hard game, but it can be done through the Wisdom, through becoming Wisdom-centered. To do this, we have to renounce the pride of our minds, the stubbornness, and the ego that make us think we are already above these things or that we can deal with them independently. This cannot happen just by talking about it or thinking about it. The move from being mind-centered or self-centered to being Wisdom-centered is not easy, and Wisdom is our guide.
We live in a world where various ideas of freedom or salvation or liberation are bountiful, the most common idea being that of freedom upon death. But the Guru is showing us a different ideal — as a state of freedom in the world, freedom while we are still alive, the freedom that comes when we can stop being driven by our emotions and stubborn pride. We all have the potential to experience this freedom as the wise ones. The question is just whether we will do the brave and difficult work of introspection and reflection and make tangible steps away from things as they are now into what they could be. Will we take those steps away from mind-centeredness and toward wisdom-centeredness?
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