Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh!

Today’s Hukamnama is in Raag Sorath by Guru Amar Das Ji and is on Ang 651 of Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji Maharaj.

Siri Guru Granth Sahib Ji Ang: 651

Ek Ong Kaar Kaur
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slok m Ú 3 ]
salok ma 3 ||
Salok, Third Mehla:

ry jn auQwrY dibEhu suiqAw geI ivhwie ]
rae jan outhhaarai dhabiouhu suthiaa gee vihaae ||
O man, you have been tormented by a nightmare, and you have passed your life in sleep.

siqgur kw sbdu suix n jwigE AMqir n aupijE cwau ]
sathigur kaa sabadh sun n jaagiou a(n)thar n oupajiou chaao ||
You did not wake to hear the Word of the True Guru’s Shabad; you have no inspiration within yourself.

srIru jlau gux bwhrw jo gur kwr n kmwie ]
sareer jalo gun baaharaa jo gur kaar n kamaae ||
That body burns, which has no virtue, and which does not serve the Guru.

jgqu jlMdw ifTu mY haumY dUjY Bwie ]
jagath jala(n)dhaa ddit(h) mai houmai dhoojai bhaae ||
I have seen that the world is burning, in egotism and the love of duality.

nwnk gur srxweI aubry scu min sbid iDAwie ]1]
naanak gur saranaaee oubarae sach man sabadh dhhiaae ||1||
O Nanak, those who seek the Guru’s Sanctuary are saved; within their minds, they meditate on the True Word of the Shabad. ||1||

m Ú 3 ]
ma 3 ||
Third Mehla:

sbid rqy haumY geI soBwvMqI nwir ]
sabadh rathae houmai gee sobhaava(n)thee naar ||
Attuned to the Word of the Shabad, the soul-bride is rid of egotism, and she is glorified.

ipr kY BwxY sdw clY qw binAw sIgwru ]
pir kai bhaanai sadhaa chalai thaa baniaa seegaar ||
If she walks steadily in the way of His Will, then she is adorned with decorations.

syj suhwvI sdw ipru rwvY hir vru pwieAw nwir ]
saej suhaavee sadhaa pir raavai har var paaeiaa naar ||
Her couch becomes beautiful, and she constantly enjoys her Husband Lord; she obtains the Lord as her Husband.

nw hir mrY n kdy duKu lwgY sdw suhwgix nwir ]
naa har marai n kadhae dhukh laagai sadhaa suhaagan naar ||
The Lord does not die, and she never suffers pain; she is a happy soul-bride forever.

nwnk hir pRB myil leI gur kY hyiq ipAwir ]2]
naanak har prabh mael lee gur kai haeth piaar ||2||
O Nanak, the Lord God unites her with Himself; she enshrines love and affection for the Guru. ||2||

pauVI ]
pourree ||
Pauree:

ijnw guru goipAw Awpxw qy nr buirAwrI ]
jinaa gur gopiaa aapanaa thae nar buriaaree ||
Those who conceal and deny their Guru, are the most evil people.

hir jIau iqn kw drsnu nw krhu pwipst hiqAwrI ]
har jeeo thin kaa dharasan naa karahu paapisatt hathiaaree ||
O Dear Lord, let me not even see them; they are the worst sinners and murderers.

Eih Gir Gir iPrih kusuD min ijau Drkt nwrI ]
ouhi ghar ghar firehi kusudhh man jio dhharakatt naaree ||
They wander from house to house, with impure minds, like wicked, forsaken women.

vfBwgI sMgiq imly gurmuiK svwrI ]
vaddabhaagee sa(n)gath milae guramukh savaaree ||
But by great good fortune, they may meet the Company of the Holy; as Gurmukhs, they are reformed.

hir mylhu siqgur dieAw kir gur kau bilhwrI ]23]
har maelahu sathigur dhaeiaa kar gur ko balihaaree ||23||
O Lord, please be kind and let me meet the True Guru; I am a sacrifice to the Guru. ||23||

Katha by Nihang Sukha Singh

Raag Sorath has a feeling of deep conviction, deep faith, deep belief and conveying this belief through the Raag. The Hukamnama is split into three parts. First part is Salok Mehlaa 3, second part is Mehlaa 3 and the last part is Pa-orhee. The Salok is the beginning point of the Shabad where Guru Ji lays the main foundations of the idea of this Hukamnama and in Mehlaa 3 and Pa-orhee, these ideas are explained and expanded upon.

Ray jan uthaarai dabi-ohu suti-aa ga-ee vihaa-ay.
Ray jan is when you are calling out to someone and you say, Ray jan. It’s an old term used in India in the past and is still used now when we say a-rreh. Ray jan means Oh Man! Uthaarai dabi-ohu Dabi-ohu means to be pressed under, to be buried under. Uthaarai means in this context a nightmare. You’re buried under a nightmare. Suti-aa ga-ee vihaa-ay. Suti-aa means asleep. Ga-ee means gone. Vihaa-ay means wasted. So Guru Ji is saying Oh Man! You have been so engrossed, so buried under this nightmare of Maya, that you have passed your whole life asleep. What type of sleep is it? Not physical but it’s spiritual. It’s in the sleep of ignorance. The sleep of Maya.

Satgur kaa sabad sun na jaagi-o antar na upji-o chaa-o.
Satgur means eternal truth, where Gur means Guru, the eternally true Guru. Sabad means the word. Satgur kaa sabad means the word of the true Guru. Sun na jaagi-o. Sun means to listen and Na jaagi-o means to not wake up. Antar means inside, internally. Na upji-o chaa-o where Chaa-o means love inside and Na upji-o means has not awakened. So by not waking up to listen to the Guru’s Sabad, Guru Ji is telling us we have not woken up to the inside love which is inside us.

Sareer jala-o gun baahraa jo gur kaar na kamaa-ay.
Sareer means body. This means physically, mentally and spiritually, not just the physical. Jala-o means burns. All the spiritual, mental and physical bodies burn. Gun baahraa where Gun means virtue and Baahraa means without. Gun baahraa means without any virtue. Jo gur kaar na kamaa-ay where Jo means which, Gur means of the Guru, Kaar means service, Na kamaa-ay means does not serve. That body, that mind, that soul burns and has no virtue, which does not do the sewa, service, of the Guru.

Jagat jalandaa dith mai ha-umai doojai bhaa-ay.
Jagat means the world. Jalandaa means burning. Dith mai means I have seen. Ha-umai means in ego. Doojai bhaa-ay means in love of duality, in love with falseness, in love with maya. Guru Ji says I have seen the world burning. What is the world burning with? What is causing all violence on this earth? Many people say religion causes violence or other things cause violence but what Guru Ji is saying is the world is burning not because of that but of egotism, of pride, of love of maya. All aggression, all anger which is burning the world can be seen coming from the root of ego, of being in love with this duality. The idea of being in duality is as if you are living in two places at once. Like believing in God for two seconds then not believing in God. They are thinking of God then they are not thinking of God. The idea is to extinguish this duality.

Naanak gur sarnaa-ee ubray sach man sabad Dhi-aa-ay. ||1||
Naanak means Oh Nanak. Gur sarnaa-ee means in the protection of the Guru. Ubray means to be saved. Sach means truth and Man means in the mind. Sabad means the word of the Guru and Dhi-aa-ay means to meditate. Oh Nanak, those who fall into the protection of the true Guru, they are saved because what happens is the Guru gives them the true Sabad, the true word of the Sabad to meditate upon. This extinguishes the love of duality, the ego inside of them. It stops the burning of their spiritual, mental and physical body.

Mehlaa 3.

Sabad ratay ha-umai ga-ee sobhaavantee naar.
Shabad means word of the Guru. Ratay means to be attuned, to be one with. Ha-umai means egotism and Ga-ee means to be gone. Naar means soul bride and Sobhaavantee means to look beautiful. Attuned to the Sabad ratay as in when one’s vibration becomes one as with that of the Sabad, Ha-umai ga-ee, the egotism goes. At that point there is no egotism left, there is only Ik-oNkaar. That is what glorifies a person. Guru Amar Das ji says if you truly want to look beautiful, have true beauty then attune yourself to the Sabad within.

Pir kai bhaanai sadaa chalai taa bani-aa seegaar.
Pir kai means the Husband Lord. Bhaanai means in the will of. Sadaa chalai means she always walks (follows). Chalai means to walk, to follow. Taa bani-aa seegaar where Taa bani-aa means then she is adored and Seegaar means with decoration. Guru Amar Das Ji is saying only if we walk on the path of the will of God will we look beautiful. Otherwise we don’t. We can’t hang on to these external decorations of the body. We have to decorate the soul. They are the true decorations, the decorations of peace, of harmony of the mind, of love. Guru Ji says that is the true decoration.

Sayj suhaavee sadaa pir raavai har var paa-i-aa naar.
Sayj means to embed and Suhaavee means looks beautiful. Sadaa means always. Pir means Husband Lord. Raavai mans to enjoy. Har means the Lord. Var means Husband. Paa-i-aa means to find and Naar means soul bride. Guru Ji says the soul bride finds Hari, the Lord God, as her husband. So the bed of the mind, of the soul, where the soul bride and the Husband Lord meet, and become one, looks beautiful. She enjoys her Husband Lord forever and ever.

Naa har marai na kaday dukh laagai sadaa suhaagan naar.
Naa har marai where Har means the Lord, Naa means to not and Marai means to die. Na kaday dukh laagai where Kaday means ever, Dukh means pain and Laagai means to suffer. The soul bride never suffers in pain once she merges into the Lord. Why? Because Sadaa suhaagan naar. Sadaa means always. Suhaagan means one who is always merged within her Husband Lord because her Husband Lord is the Immortal she can never ever suffer pain for she becomes Immortal herself.

Naanak har parabh mayl la-ee gur kai hayt pi-aar. ||2|
Har Parabh means the Lord God. Mayl means to unite and La-ee means with oneself. Gur kai hayt pi-aar where Gur kai means the Guru’s, Hayt means love and Pi-aar means affection. Oh Nanak, the Lord God unites the soul bride within himself but how does this happen? God gives us the love of the Guru. By loving the Guru we find love within ourselves.

Pa-orhee.

Jinaa gur gopi-aa aapnaa tay nar buri-aaree.
Jinaa means those. Gur means Guru. Gopi-aa means to conceal/deny. Aapnaa means their own. Tay means those. Nar means people. Buri-aaree means are evil. What does this line really mean? How many times do we deny our Guru? How do we deny the Guru? We deny the Guru when we do something contrary to what the Guru says. That’s denying the Guru. Every time we go and do something contrary to what the Guru says, we are denying the Guru. Guru Ji says that’s the worst thing you can do.

Har jee-o tin kaa darsan naa karahu paapisat hati-aaree.
Har jee-o means Oh Dear Lord. Tin kaa means of those people. Darsan means to see. Naa karahu means do not want to. Paapisat means they are the worst sinners. Hati-aaree means murderers. Oh Lord I do not even want to see these people. Why? They are the worst sinners. Guru Ji says how are they the worst sinners? They are murderers. But what are they the murderers of? They are murderers of the inside, of the love inside them, of the soul. They deny the soul, that union, with the one Creator Lord. They murder, kill that union.

Ohi ghar ghar fireh kusuDh man ji-o Dharkat naaree.
Ohi means they. Ghar ghar fireh means wander from house to house. KusuDh means impure. SuDh means pure and putting ‘ku’ infront, in Gurmukhi, negates SuDh. Man means mind. Ji-o Dharkat naaree where Ji-o means as if, Dharkat means they are forsaken and Naaree means women. Those people they wander from house to house. Spiritually they wander and think ‘Oh well, the Guru says this and I think this and I doubt this and I have this question and that question.’ Through these doubts and questions, impurity develops within the mind. They wander about as if they were forsaken.

Vadbhaagee sangat milay gurmukh savaaree.
Vadbhaagee means by great fortune Sangat milay. Even they can meet the sangat, the company of the holy. Milay means to meet. Gurmukh savaaree. They can become Gurmukh which means the ones who face the Guru, who follow the Guru through thick and thin. Savaaree which means they can be reformed, to be sorted out.

Har maylhu satgur da-i-aa kar gur ka-o balihaaree. ||23||
Har maylhu means Oh God please unite me with Satgur the True Guru. Da-i-aa kar where Da-i-aa means mercy and Kar means to shower. Oh God shower me with your mercy that I may meet the True Guru. Balihaaree means sacrifice and Gur ka-o means to the Guru. Oh God, please meet me, please meet me with the True Guru to whom I’m a sacrifice to forever and ever.

This Shabad is saying do not leave yourself in the sleep of maya today. Wake up to hear the Guru’s Shabad of the True Guru.

Ray jan uthaarai dabi-ohu suti-aa ga-ee vihaa-ay. Satgur kaa sabad sun na jaagi-o antar na upji-o chaa-o.

Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa! Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh!

Katha by Bhai Guruka Singh

The Hukamnama today is from Guru Amar Das ji, and in this Hukam he describes three different states of being.

The first state of being is people who have not woken up; People who live asleep. The second state of being, he describes the consciousness of the Gurmukh. And the third state of being he describes the state of consciousness of a Pandit.

So, first he says that when you are asleep, you live in the nightmare of the world because you’re not awake to the Shabad Guru. And so you’re at the mercy of the ups and downs of pain and pleasure. You live in that duality. You live in your egoism, and the Word is not in your mind, so you’re caught up in worldly affairs and burned by your own emotions and your own reactions to things.

Then it goes on to describe the state of Gurmukh, and he says that when you tune yourself to word of the Guru’s Shabad. And tune yourself means that your vibration in your mind and in your body is the same vibration that’s in the Guru’s Shabad; that the Shabad flows in you. And then you walk and act in the Will of God. And when your actions are in harmony with Gods Will, then you go beyond birth and death and you beyond the duality of pleasure and pain. So that pleasure and pain both become sweet. And there in lies happiness. And you become united with God. And filled with love; it’s the state of Bhagti.

Lastly in the Pauri, Guru ji describes those who deny their Guru, those who turn their back on the Guru. And this is a very unique state of consciousness. It’s when a person knows their Guru and recognized their Guru, and then turns around and turns their back on the Guru. And he says that, when you do this, your mind remains completely confused, impure, and you have wicked thoughts and negative thoughts, and that you live completely in the worst state of consciousness of pain. He even calls Pandits murderers in this Pauri.

But he ends on a positive note and says that if the destiny is there, if the destiny is written, then they can meet still the Sadh Sangat again and return to the Guru. And again become a Gurmukh. So he saying that even a pandit isn’t lost forever, that they can come out of that state of pain and they can still become Gurmukh.

And then he ends with a prayer, and he says “Oh Lord bless me to meet the True Guru, because I am forever the True Guru’s servant, and I surrender and sacrifice myself to Him.”

Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa! Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh!

Katha by Ek Ong Kaar Kaur

In this hukam Guru Amardas is having a very true vision of the different kinds of lives that can happen when we are here on the earth. It is said that the human rebirth is just a chance to experience God. It’s just a chance. It is not a guarantee that we will get there or get that experience but it’s an opportunity. Guru Amardas in this hukam is seeing the reality of that and how painful it is for people who never wake up to that chance and then how beautiful it is for those who do. So he is describing the different tracks that we can take in life.

He starts off the first life by saying, “Oh man you have been tortured, you have been asleep your whole life. You have been in a nightmare and tortured by a nightmare.” This analogy comes up in Gurbani from time to time, where people are alive, but they are actually sound asleep and they are asleep to the reality of the divine inside of themselves. So their mind creates these visions that have nothing to do with what their real identity is and it is in this hukam Guru Amardas is describing that it is a nightmare. He is saying, “You haven’t listened deeply, woken up and listened deeply to the sound current that cuts the ego, which comes from the energy of the teacher. Because of that there is nothing in your own body. There is nothing to inspire you; there is nothing inside of you.” This can happen in a life where we chase everything, we chase wealth, and we chase so many things. It’s not that there is anything wrong with what we can receive as a human being, it’s that if we chase everything and forget to find the experience of God inside of ourselves then we have wasted our life and one day we wake up and even if we have got everything around us we find that nothing is left inside. So Guru Amardas is really describing a psychological condition that happens for many people when they have not listened to the wisdom of the teacher and how empty they become because of that.

He goes on to say, “The body that does not practice virtue and the body that does not do the work that the Guru gives to do or the work that teacher gives to do that body burns. It’s a really painful painful painful experience for the soul to live inside of a body that doesn’t practice virtue and that does not do the work that the teacher gives a person to do. So Guru Amardas is saying, “He is watching this universe and he is seeing that in this duality of ego everybody is burning and everybody is in pain.” The ego is again the illusion identity, it’s an identity that is conceptual, it’s an identity that is temporary. When we do not understand the divine identity that is inside of us and when we connect with this illusory conceptual identity, that creates duality in our existence and it is very, very painful state to be in. Guru Amardas is observing that the world is in this condition, not just a few people. So many people are just in this condition.

He then elevates it and says, “Nanak, those who seek the sanctuary of the teacher, those who seek the sanctuary of the Guru they are released from this experience of burning. They are released and liberated from the pain that he has described earlier in the hukam.” When the mind is meditating on the Shabad, meditating on the sound in the universe that cuts through the ego then it can experience the ultimate reality. So he talks about this more he uses again this term to die, Rathe, that every fibre of our being is to be filled with the sound current that fills us and takes us to wisdom, the Shabad. So when we let ourselves come into that state where we let every fibre in our being absorb that sound of the Shabad then this conceptual, temporary, illusive identity of the ego is destroyed.

Guru Amardas in the rest of the hukam is going to be talking about the soul in terms of wife or bride. He says, “Then the wife becomes tremendously beautiful.” When the ego is destroyed the wife becomes beautiful to her husband. Mystically speaking every soul is feminine and every soul is the bride of the God. Then he talks about the state of the wife; when she is always walking in the way of her husband’s will then she is made very beautiful, very decorative. This is not something she does for herself, it’s not something that any of us do it for ourselves. The analogy of the bride and husband is so important because it means that this place comes through exquisite and extraordinary love. It’s a place of tremendous, tremendous love. So when the wife is surrendering in love and walking the way of the will of the husband then it is the law of the universe that she becomes beautiful and decorated. The analogy is also very intimate in Gurbani, the couch becomes beautiful. The wife is always enjoying her husband always on the couch. It’s not just love, it’s also the intermingling of the elements, it’s also a physical union that can be experienced. The wife receives that hug that creative divinity as her husband blesses her in this state. So we find that the experience of the husband inside ourselves is tremendously joyful, tremendously loving, tremendously intimate merger. This is what the gift of a human body offers us the opportunity to experience. Guru Amardas says, “This experience of the divine essence of the creator does not ever die and it does not bring pain. In fact it is an experience that is always bringing us tremendous happiness, always bringing the wife tremendous happiness and tremendous joy when she finds her husband as the creator inside of herself, inside of the creation.

Again talking about what a loving experience that is, “Oh Nanak, the wife will intermingle and become attached to the creator and the transcendent one. This is done through the love of the Guru, love of the teacher.” So when we love the teacher, not as a personality or a historical memory, but when we love the teacher as the teachings themselves then the soul becomes that devoted wife who is deeply connected and deeply attached to the secure, supreme, transcendent divine being.

Guru Amardas in the last few lines of the Shabad goes to describe the polarity because planet Earth offers polarity. We can have this exquisite, loving experience of God as our husband through the sound current or we can have the opposite experience. Guru Amardas is saying that those people who pretend they do not have a teacher: the truth is every soul was given the Guru in some form. For Sikhs that Guru is the Shabad Guru. The promise for every soul was that energy of the teacher would come to one form or another. So those who pretend that the energy does not exist, or do not acknowledge that or deny that, Guru Amardas is talking about them as having the worst, lowest form of human life on Earth. He says, “I don’t even want to have to see that because it’s so painful. I don’t even want to have to see those people who are denying that they do not have a teacher.” Those people are the ones who commit the worst atrocities amongst themselves or amongst others. They are killers, murderers, they are the ones who continually harm themselves and harm others when they deny that energy of the teacher. They wander from place to place, they wander from home to home and their minds are completely blocked from seeing their inner divinity. That soul then is characterized, the wife is characterized with a bad character. What does it mean that a wife is with a bad character? It means a person who is completely self absorbed and is very selfish. It is someone who is always making decisions based on their own gratitude, regardless of how it harms the people inside them. This is what happens when we acknowledge the teacher; we become someone completely focused on our own gratification wondering around creating so much misery for ourselves and others. It is truly the worst kind of human life to have.

Guru Amardas elevates it at the end and says, “ Even for these people if by some blessing, by some good fortune they come into contact with the sangat, with the company of other people, [Power of sangat is talked about in this particular hukam where being around other people who are living in a good way has an impact on a person. No matter where they might be in their own personal development or in their own struggles just surrounding themselves with sangat has a positive impact.] If they meet with the sangat and can learn how to surrender their mind, learn how to become Gurmukhs and can learn how to surrender themselves to follow the instructions of the Guru then they can be reformed.” Then some sort of transformation can happen for them. It’s a transformation out of that place of darkness, out of that place of hurting other people and hurting others.

So the end of the hukam is a prayer, “Oh God by your kindness, let me meet with the teacher of truth and let me give everything I am as a sacrifice to that teacher.” Because it is the difference between misery and happiness, the difference between being happily married and unhappily married, the difference between having peace and having pain, the difference between serving others and hurting others is whether or not the mind is trained to listen and accept the teacher, the Guru. Guru Amardas is saying let me give everything to that teacher because it is that teacher that gets us out of the pain and the cycle of birth and death.

Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh!