Harjinder Kaur – Man Har Preet Lagae
by Bhau Ji
“When the mind is polluted, worship is not possible and Naam cannot be obtained”
If we wish to withdraw from the materialistic world to gain entry into the divine world, then every aspect of our life style like
- thoughts
- thinking
- beliefs
- life’s direction
- tendencies
- knowledge
- deeds
- behaviour
- imagination
will have to change.
To bring about this important change in life, the company of gurmukh piaares (spiritually evolved souls) or the sadh sangat is the only indicated and effective way.
As we continue to be in the company of the sat- sangat (evolved soul) our attitude to life will change and so will the mind orientated deeds. To take such spiritual flights we have to empty ourselves and be like Kabir who says “ No one is mine and I am no ones.” It is only by being empty that we can detach ourselves.
Everyone knows how to get entangled in the me-mine state, but to be free from the eternal prison of materialism, we have to keep the company of Gurmukh piaares who practice the advice / sermon of detachment. They mould their life according to the precept “Those who know how to leave (this world) why should they amass (things of this world)” only they successfully free themselves from the “false deeds and attachments”. But such blessed gurmukh piaares are rare indeed.
- (The evolved souls) are few and not many. The rest are (involved) in a show and wrangling in this world. 1411
An example of such a gursikh’s life of detachment and simran:-
Some 60 years ago in a gurdwara in Rangoon , Burma, I met a Sindhi Sikh. Quietly he used to do sewa and satsang in the gurdwara and earned a livelihood through honest deeds. All other time he spent in redeeming his life by doing gurbani paath and simran.
He would get up in the ambrosial (early) hours of the morning and after paath and simran he would go to the gurdwara to benefit from the satsang. He used to prepare his own simple food. After food, he would move through the town pedaling (selling) from his bundle of clothes. To sell his clothes he never used his voice to proclaim his sale, instead people knew of the arrival of the cloth seller from the sound his iron yard made as it hit the road. To proclaim his presence with the mouth would mean interrupting his simran.
When a customer called him, quietly he would untie his bundle and show the clothes and give the price. When some customers asked for reduction or tried to bargain he would immediately tie up his bundle and walk off. He explained that bargaining too interfered with his simran.
- When one forgets the Beloved even for a moment, what kind of worship is that? A person whose soul and body are cool with the True Naam, no breath of his goes in vain. 35
Slowly the area folks realised that his price is reasonable and they stopped bargaining with him.
He explained that when his sales reached the point where he had made a profit of 2 rupees, he would immediately return home. In this way he remained ‘detached and absorbed in the Lord’s Simran. Talking briefly about his unusual life style, he said that he was from the state of ‘Sindh’. His family was then living in Sindh. For his daily needs he needed one rupee and his family back home too, needed one rupee daily. For this reason he had to earn two rupees daily by pedaling the clothes.
As soon as his earnings reached two rupees, he returned home from pedaling and immersed himself in the true cultivation of simran.
- God’s wealth is the true capital. Only some rare one understands this. He alone receives it, O brother, to whom the Lord destines. 319
- They who cherish love for their Lord, their souls is ever attuned to God. Meditating and ever dwelling upon the Beloved, they live and they gather God’s Naam. 725
He was content with his patient and honest earnings. He had no yearning to accumulate materialistic things. His constant yearning was for the cultivation of Naam or simran.
When he was asked how he came about with this realisation of such ‘gurmukh life’. He replied that he got this gift from his mother’s lullabies of Sukhmani Sahib.
In his life, Gurbani’s advice
By ‘saying’ I live, by ‘forgetting’ I die.
To be a Gurmukh (you must) remain detached.
Such servants are rare in this world.
By contemplating on the Shabad one remains detached.
has found permanent acceptance and he was cultivating this in his daily life.
- Blessed, blessed are the bankers who deal in the trade of God’s Naam. The Sikh peddlers come, and with God’s Naam the Guru takes them across. They alone serve the creator O Nanak on whom is God’s Grace. 313
In this way to convert human life from
- bad to good
- polluted to pure
- materialistic to divine
- painful to peaceful
- mind orientated to guru orientated
can be achieved by
- abstaining or remaining detached from worldly vices and
- cultivating or accumulating divine virtues
and is absolutely necessary – only then can our mind penetrate within, and unite with ‘simran’.
Gur Vichar 