Siri Guru Granth Sahib Ji Ang: 714

Waheguru ji ka Khalsa! Waheguru ji ki Fateh!

The Hukamnama today is by Guru Arjan Devji Maharaj. Its in Todee Raag and its on Ang 714 of Shri Guru Granth Sahib ji.

tofI mhlw 5 ]
toddee mehalaa 5 ||
Todee, Fifth Mehla:

inMdku gur ikrpw qy hwitE ]
ni(n)dhak gur kirapaa thae haattiou ||
The slanderer, by Guru’s Grace, has been turned away.

pwrbRhm pRB Bey dieAwlw isv kY bwix isru kwitE ]1] rhwau ]
paarabreham prabh bheae dhaeiaalaa siv kai baan sir kaattiou ||1|| rehaao ||
The Supreme Lord God has become merciful; with Shiva’s arrow, He shot his head off. ||1||Pause||

kwlu jwlu jmu joih n swkY sc kw pMQw QwitE ]
kaal jaal jam johi n saakai sach kaa pa(n)thhaa thhaattiou ||
Death, and the noose of death, cannot see me; I have adopted the Path of Truth.

Kwq Krcq ikCu inKutq nwhI rwm rqnu Dnu KwitE ]1]
khaath kharachath kishh nikhuttath naahee raam rathan dhhan khaattiou ||1||
I have earned the wealth, the jewel of the Lord’s Name; eating and spending, it is never used up. ||1||

Bsmw BUq hoAw iKn BIqir Apnw kIAw pwieAw ]
bhasamaa bhooth hoaa khin bheethar apanaa keeaa paaeiaa ||
In an instant, the slanderer was reduced to ashes; he received the rewards of his own actions.

Awgm ingmu khY jnu nwnku sBu dyKY loku sbwieAw ]2]6]11]
aagam nigam kehai jan naanak sabh dhaekhai lok sabaaeiaa ||2||6||11||
Servant Nanak speaks the truth of the scriptures; the whole world is witness to it. ||2||6||11||

Katha by Nihang Sukha Singh ji

ni(n)dhak gur kirapaa thae haattiou ||
Satgur Arjan Devji Maharaj speaks in the todee raag, a raag which contains humility, yet has an underlying wisdom or understanding and through this Raag, Guru Sahibji says this slanderer, with the grace of the Guru has been stopped.

paarabreham prabh bheae dhaeiaalaa siv kai baan sir kaattiou ||1|| rehaao ||
Waheguruji has been merciful. With Shiva’s arrow the head of the slanderer has been cut off. Now, what does this mean? What Guru Sahibji is saying is that the slanderer has been struck down by death.

kaal jaal jam johi n saakai sach kaa pa(n)thhaa thhaattiou ||
Shiva’s arrow is symbolising death and the jamdoots, they surround the slanderer, whereas the follower of the Guru is surrounded by light and the arrow of death cannot prick him or her. The arrow of death pricks that person who is this slanderer, but that person who follows the Guru, no arrow of death can come near them.

How Guruji is saying, think about this - the news of death, the web of death, the angels of death, cannot touch me, cannot do anything to me, they cannot obstruct me in any way.

Why? Because I follow the path of truth, because I walk on the path of truth, death cannot touch me.

khaath kharachath kishh nikhuttath naahee raam rathan dhhan khaattiou ||1||
I spend this wealth more and more, but this wealth cannot be used up. What wealth is it? It is the diamond of Raam, of the name of Waheguru, that is the wealth which I have earned.

bhasamaa bhooth hoaa khin bheethar apanaa keeaa paaeiaa ||
This slanderer has become ashes, in one second, in an instant. Thus slanderer has reaped the rewads of his or own actions.

aagam nigam kehai jan naanak sabh dhaekhai lok sabaaeiaa ||2||6||11||
The servant Nanak speaks this truth, the truth of all the scriptures of the world, and the whole world witnesses Nanak speaking this truth.

What Guruji is saying is that if you fall into that slandering, you will be cut down by death, but if you rise above it, then you will be surrounded by light and by truth. Death cannot touch those people, who adopt the path of truth.

Waheguru ji ka Khalsa! Waheguru ji ki Fateh!

Katha by Ek Oang Kar Kaur ji

Today’s hukamnama is from Guru Arjan Devji in Raag Todee from Page 714 of the Shri Guru Granth Sahib.

And a lot of us when we are in that position of being in our truth and purity and someone out of jealousy doesn’t want us to have the position or the face that we have, they will use slander as a tool against us. Most people respond to slander with anger, with a sort of self-righteousness anger, justifiable anger, and often get into the trap of being negative in return to the slander.

But, what Guru Arjan is doing in this hukam is giving us approach to dealing with slander that actually takes us to the highest most peaceful experience inside of us. He does it by talking about what happens to someone who slanders, so in the first line he is saying through the Guru’s kindness, the person who is a slanderer gets stopped in their track.

It is an interesting line, because who is the Guru being kind to? Is the Guru being kind to the slanderer or the one who is being slandered or both? It is not necessarily a victim situation, where the Guru is protecting the one who is being slandered, in some way it is protection for the slanderer to be stopped, to stop for that person’s karma to not continue in that mode.

So through the kindness of the Guru the slanderer is stopped and through the mercy and kindness of the Transcendent One the arrow of Shiva has kind of shot his head off. This is a real symbolic line in a lot of ways. There are so many different ways to talk about what that means, the arrow of Shiva has kind of shot his head off, or taken his head off, the head of the slanderer off. One way to talk about the line is that when we experience slander, it is a very natural human instinct for us to try and stop that slander from happening ourselves. But Guru Arjan is that actually there is a power, the power of the Divine can be destructive energy to keep the slanderer from doing that act of slandering.

We see examples in Sikh history all the time that how the Gurus would allow people to be unrighteous to them, then the hand of God would come in and balance the affairs of the Guru and correct the situation. Also that the head is being cut off is that slandering comes from a place of the mind, it comes from the head, it never comes from the heart, so even though the head of the slanderer might be cut off, the ultimate reality that the Guru will talk about in Gurbani is that the light of God lives in every heart.

So, even when there is someone who is treating us badly or slandering us, still the heart is a pure light and it is just from the head that these things come. So, the Transcendent power and Its mercy is cutting off the head of that person and it is not up to us in our own power to try and do anything to stop the slanderer its up to the Divine to balance it and correct the situation.

Then Guru Arjan goes on and says that the Angels of Death can’t see the one who is walking the path of Truth or the path of Sach. We talked about earlier this week how Sach also refers to Guru Nanak’s Japji Sahib’s Sachkhand that the One who is walking the path of seeing the Transcendent One present in the creation and seeing the Transcendent One as watching everything and completing everything. The one who is in death, the awareness that there is this doer that is bigger than any person who is really watching everything, moving everything completing everything.

When we are walking on that path, Death does not see us, because there is no death on that path. When we are in that experience of Sachkhand, when we in the experience of the Nirankar, the formless One who watches everything, then we ourselves have transcended the experience of death and time and space. So, how can death possibly touch us, how can death come to us?

In life, we think our survival is based on the wealth that we collect and the food that we eat, Guru Arjan in this next line talks about the wealth and the food of Ram ratan dhan, so the diamond jewel of Ram. Ram is one of the names of God that talks about the polarity of male and female, Ra Ma the Sun and the Moon, the one who created the Sun and the Moon, the male and the female, really holds that polarity and balance and the union and creativity and the beauty of it.

When we can experience the creative energy and divine and get into that wealth, its something that always takes care of us and provides for us, no matter we use it or what we do with it. We never exhaust that wealth, and that’s the real security that we experience in the human form.

It’s really a mind set of saying that when we walk the path to experience the sachkhand, we experience that jewel of Ram ratan and its a wealth and security that no matter what we do, it never goes away. But, the ones who slander, or the ones who speak badly of others, that comes from a psychological insecurity, they haven’t experienced the divine, or that ultimate security, that the divine can give and they come from a lower place, in their own psyche, when they are in that mind set, the one who is speaking badly, just takes a moment, for their whole world to be reduced to ashes.

What Guru Arjan is saying that what they give out, they in turn receive, so the slanderer has an intention of destroying somebody’s world. The cosmic law of the Universe is that what you give out is what comes back to you. So, it is not even anybody needs to do anything, the power is in that cosmic law. The slanderer sends out an intention to destroy and then in an instant, cosmic law brings that energy back and the slanderer himself or herself is completely reduced to ashes, is completely destroyed.

Nanak says, listen this law of what you send out, being what you receive, and the slanderer sends out destruction and receives destruction and the one who with walks the Truth of the Divine in everything and watching and guiding everything doesn’t even experience death.

He says that law is kind of a law written in all scriptures, in any sort of sacred tradition, this law what you send out is what you receive, that exists in every sacred knowledge and that everyone in this whole world, every person in the Universe even can watch that that law is in action, that that law is true and it works and it is in action.

Waheguru ji ka Khalsa! Waheguru ji ki Fateh!