English translation of the daily Hukamnama.

Siri Guru Granth Sahib Ji Ang: 679

Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh!

The hukamnama today is by Guru Arjun Devji in Dhanasaree Raag on Ang 679 of Siri Guru Granth Sahib Ji Maharaj.

DnwsrI mhlw 5 Gru 8 dupdy (679-5)
Dhanaasree mehlaa 5 ghar 8 dupday (679-5)
Dhanaasaree, Fifth Mehla, Eighth House, Du-Padas (679-5):

<> siqgur pRswid ]
ik-oNkaar satgur parsaad.
One Continuous God, Eternal, True, Divine Enlightener, Merciful, Guru’s Grace.

ismrau ismir ismir suK pwvau swis swis smwly ]
simra-o simar simar sukh paava-o saas saas samaalay.
Remembering, remembering, remembering Him in meditation, I find peace; with each and every breath, I dwell upon Him.

ieh loik prloik sMig shweI jq kq moih rKvwly ]1]
ih lok parlok sang sahaa-ee jat kat mohi rakhvaalay. ||1||
In this world, and in the world beyond, He is with me, as my help and support; wherever I go, He protects me. ||1||

gur kw bcnu bsY jIA nwly ]
gur kaa bachan basai jee-a naalay.
The Guru’s Word abides with my soul.

jil nhI fUbY qskru nhI lyvY Bwih n swkY jwly ]1] rhwau ]
jal nahee doobai taskar nahee layvai bhaahi na saakai jaalay. ||1|| rahaa-o.
It does not sink in water; thieves cannot steal it, and fire cannot burn it. ||1||Pause||

inrDn kau Dnu AMDuly kau itk mwq dUDu jYsy bwly ]
nirDhan ka-o Dhan anDhulay ka-o tik maat dooDh jaisay baalay.
It is like wealth to the poor, a cane for the blind, and mother’s milk for the infant.

swgr mih boihQu pwieE hir nwnk krI ikrpw ikrpwly ]2]1]32]
saagar meh bohith paa-i-o har naanak karee kirpaa kirpaalay. ||2||1||32||
In the ocean of the world, I have found the boat of the Lord; the Merciful Lord has bestowed His Mercy upon Nanak. ||2||1||32||

Katha by Nihang Sukha Singh Ji

ik-oNkaar satgur parsaad
There is one creative nourishing and destructive  being who I found through the grace of the Guru.,

simra-o simar simar sukh paava-o saas saas samaalay.
I find peace, suckh means peace, by meditating and meditating and meditating and remembering  and remembering Waheguru.  saas saas samaalay With each thought without each breath with each second  By meditating on Waheguru with each second, that is the way to find peace. I dwell upon Him.

ih lok parlok sang sahaa-ee jat kat mohi rakhvaalay.
ih lok parlok. This is sang sahaa-ee, sang sahaa-ee means to be with me at all times. Ih lok parlok. Ih lok means in this world and parlok means in the next. Waheguru ji, jat kat mohi rakhvaalay, wherever you go, He is the One who will protect you.

gur kaa bachan basai jee-a naala  within my soul. Nothing can take the Guru’s words from you. That is the beauty of Sikhi. That is the beauty of the Guru’s karma. You can be cut in half, burnt alive, ripped into bits, and this eternal shabad, this eternal word of the Guru,  will not be taken away.

jal nahee doobai taskar nahee layvai bhaahi na saakai jaalay.
jal nahee doobai, Jal water doobai cannot sink it. taskar nahee a thief cannot steal this word from you. Bhaahi na saakai jaalay.  bhaahi means fire. Fire cannot burn it because the Word of the Guru abides in you.

Rhahaa-o Pause and think about this.

What is the word of the Guru like?  nirDhan ka-o Dhan anDhulay ka-o tik maat dooDh jaisay baalay. nirDhan ka-o Dhan  InirDhan ka-o Dhan t is like a poor man finding wealth. anDhulay It is like a cane, a walking stick for the blind man. maat dooDh  It is like maat dooDh a mother’s milk for the infant.

saagar meh bohith paa-i-o har naanak karee kirpaa kirpaalay.
And this word of the Guru is the saagar me bohith, it is the boat of Hari, of Waheguru. In this saagar, in this ocean. And Guru says, paa-i-o har naanak. I found this shabad, this word. This is the boat with which to cross the ocean of this world.  Karee kirpaa kirpaalay. And that kirpaa, the merciful Lord has blessed Nanaak with his kirpaa, with his mercy,

So what Guruji is saying to us today is that the Word of the Guru is so precious. Why, because no one can ever take it from you.  Bhai Mati  Dass was repeating that shabad, that mantra as he was being cut in half.  Bhai Dyal Daas as he was being burnt a lilve. Sati Dass as he was being ripped into bits. No one could take that faith, that love, that shabad from them.  

jal nahee doobai taskar nahee layvai bhaahi na saakai jaalay rahaa-o.

Jaikara Bolave Nihaal Ho Jave Sarbat Guru Khalsa Singh Sahibji de Manan Nu Bhave
Satsiri Akal! Gurbar Akal!
Deg teg Fateh! Panth Ki Jeet!
Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh!

Katha by Ik Oang Kaar Kaur Ji Khalsa

The hukam begins with a phrase from the first Astapadea of Sukhmani Sahib ji, simaro simar simar sukh paavo. The notion of simran is really important, especially in Guru Arjan dev ji’s Bani. Simran often gets translated as remembrance, which is a very shallow, flat-land way to translate simran. The Sri Singh Sahibs talked about simran in a very specific way. Simran is not dyan; it is not meditation; it is not jap; it is not repeating it is not ardaas; it is not a prayer.  Simran is a state of conscious that comes out of doing these kinds of practices. Simran is a way for the inner being of the spirit and the outer being of the temporary personality and body and mind to communicate with each other, intermingle with each other, mutually relate to each other, so that the personality in destiny, which is from the soul, and the personality of time and space, become one thing.

For most of us, our souls took a form for a purpose, and we have tremendous pain and duality in our lives, because what the soul took the body to do, and the mind to do, and incarnated to do, conflicts with what we believe we should do, what we are taught we should do, what the mind thinks, or what the body desires. This conflict between the soul’s purpose and the personality of time and space creates tremendous pain, creates depression, it leads drug abuse, leads to alcoholism, leads to fantasy, leads to getting lost in romantic love. So that disconnect between the soul and the temporary personality is really the main problem that we are trying to work out as human beings, and which is why we need a guru, and why we need a teacher, because we need the power of a teacher, so that this duality can be resolved.

Simran is a very elevated, high state of consciousness, where through the practice of dyan, through the practice of jap, through the practice of ardaas, through the practice of kirtan, we actually come into a reality where the destiny of the soul is being expressed, because the mind is constantly being directed to the inner being, instead of into the Maya around it. 

So the mind has the power to move energy. If the mind moves energy on its own behalf, we call that the Manmukh. Gurbani talks about how the Manmukh dies, and how the Manmukh suffers. When the mind is trained through the Guru’s word, to direct itself to understanding the instruction of the inner being, then the energy is moved in a way so that the soul can deliver and realize the purpose that it came to earth for. This capacity of the mind to inner beam and intermingle with the beam of light of the soul, and how that manifests the reality of the soul in time and space, in a way that is harmonious, that is what simran is.

So Guru Arjan is saying in this first line, through this experience, and it is repeated simar simar simar, it is a continual state–When we are continually in that place of the mind in-beaming to the light and beam of the soul, and the intermingling of that, and the projection of that, then that is when peace comes to us. Within every breath we are in this state of remembering. What does it mean to remember God? Well it doesn’t mean to remember some being out there in the universe that is disconnected from us.  To remember with every breath the Divine is to remember presence of the Divine inside of ourselves. That is the only thing we have the capacity to remember because it is the only thing we really can experience.

Guru Nanaak talks about the Divine in Japji:  That the Divine in all its Creativity is beyond the reach of our senses and beyond our mind. But the Divine Life that lives inside of us that we can really know and feel complete with. So it is through this consciousness and condition of simran that peace comes to us. Peace comes to us, and with every breath, we are constantly remembering that Divine essence that lives inside of us. And he says that this experience of the inner being that we can touch, in the human body, in this world, and in the world beyond, is our true companion. Because that will never leave us. The body will drop away. The mind will drop away. But if we have tasted the inner being, that is the death-less-ness that goes on inside of us. That is what goes on from lifetime to lifetime. That energy is a tremendous help and protection for us. When we come from our mind, we make mistakes when we allow the inner being to guide us. It guides us very clearly through life.

Guru Arjan brings it back to Guru, to the Shabad and he says, gur kaa bachan basai jeea naalae. He is saying that the song of the Guru is living with the inner being. And that this is the key because the mind on its own cannot get there. It is only through this song that the Guru sings, that the mind can be trained to exist with the Jio with the soul with the inner being. And so he is saying that it is this key, of the song of the Guru, that allows this to happen. And he talks about the quality of this song. Once through the song, the mind is directed to dwell with the inner being, there is no material condition that can destroy that experience for us. So it can’t be drowned in water, it can’t be burned in fire, nobody can steal that from us. This is really important when we look at the history of the Sikhs and the tortures that the Sikhs had to go through. Once there was simran, there was the genuine experience of manifesting that destiny. The tortures of water and the tortures of fire, because of the Guru’s song, bachan: there was no way for those tortures to break that experience. Yes, the body could be broken. Yes, there could be pain. But nothing could interfere with that state of simran once it is established. And that is what Guru Arjan is talking about here. Nothing can take that away from a person.

This experience is wealth for those who have no wealth. It is a cane to help someone who is blind to walk. For a totally helpless baby it is the mother’s milk that completely feeds it. So, we are poor, and we are blind, and we are helpless children. But through the Guru’s song that awakens the experience of simran, the consciousness of simran, that then becomes the song and the simran becomes the wealth that helps us, the cane that helps us, and the mother’s milk that feeds us. He says that in this ocean here is the boat, I have found Har, I have found the Divine Essence  that dwells inside of everything. And, Nanak, it is through the kindness and the graciousness of the Guru that I have found this boat of the Divine Essence that can carry me across life. 

Waheguru Ji Ka Khlasa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh!