Co­in­cid­ing with the 581st birth an­niver­sary of Bha­gat Kabir, WSN colum­nist Bhupin­der Singh shares an in­ter­est­ing and en­gag­ing spir­i­tual con­ver­sa­tion be­tween Bha­gat Namdev and Bha­gat Trilochan, nar­rated in Guru Granth Sahib by Bha­gat Kabir. Re­mark­ably, six cen­turies ago, the cel­e­brated Sufi-saint em­pha­sized the sig­nif­i­cance of work and wor­ship.

IN A SLOK ON PAGE 1375 OF GURU GRANTH SAHIB, Bha­gat Kabir Ji has cap­tured the con­ver­sa­tion be­tween two saints Bha­gat Trilochan and Bha­gat Namdev in Ma­ha­rash­tra.

ਨਾਮਾ ਮਾਇਆ ਮੋਹਿਆ ਕਹੈ ਤਿਲੋਚਨੁ ਮੀਤ ॥
ਕਾਹੇ ਛੀਪਹੁ ਛਾਇਲੈ ਰਾਮ ਨ ਲਾਵਹੁ ਚੀਤੁ ॥212॥
ਨਾਮਾ ਕਹੈ ਤਿਲੋਚਨਾ ਮੁਖ ਤੇ ਰਾਮੁ ਸੰਮ੍ਹਾਲਿ ॥
ਹਾਥ ਪਾਉ ਕਰਿ ਕਾਮੁ ਸਭੁ ਚੀਤੁ ਨਿਰੰਜਨ ਨਾਲਿ ॥213॥

Trilochan says, O Namdev, the ma­te­r­ial world (Maya) has en­ticed you, my friend. Why are you busy print­ing de­signs on these sheets, and not fo­cus­ing your con­scious­ness on God?

Namdev an­swers, O Trilochan, say God’s Name with your mouth. With your hands and feet, do all your work, but let your con­scious­ness re­main with God.

Guru Granth Sahib, page 1375

This con­ver­sa­tion took place when Bha­gat Trilochan Ji vis­ited Bha­gat Namdev Ji at the lat­ter’s place. Sig­nif­i­cantly, Kabir Ji, a Ba­naras res­i­dent, born about 128 years af­ter Namdev and liv­ing hun­dreds of miles away was aware of this in­ci­dent and cap­tured it with his pen when there were no es­tab­lished meth­ods of com­mu­ni­ca­tion or trans­fer of in­for­ma­tion.

As we can see here, Bha­gat Trilochan was sur­prised to find Bha­gat Namdev en­gaged in the pur­suit of money, uti­liz­ing his train­ing as a cal­ico printer. Bha­gat Trilochan Ji asked a very pointed ques­tion as to why he was en­gaged in such fu­tile pur­suits. The sage Trilochan added that in­stead, he should be fo­cus­ing his at­ten­tion on God. Ob­vi­ously, Bha­gat Trilochan Ji ex­pected Bha­gat Namdev Ji to be deep in med­i­ta­tion.

It is like that mo­ment “what are you do­ing”?

Namdev shot back that it is al­right to work with hands and feet, while the tongue is en­gaged in the re­mem­brance of God. Here Namdev Ji has shared a cru­cial in­sight about where con­scious­ness or aware­ness should be fo­cused on.

It is like that mo­ment “what are you do­ing”?

Many times in life we are phys­i­cally en­gaged in an ac­tiv­ity but our mind is some­where else, in La-La land. Here Bha­gat Namdev has em­pha­sized where the aware­ness should be fo­cused on, while the hands and feet are en­gaged in work. The words above do not pro­vide the de­tails of Bha­gat Namdev Ji’s re­sponse, but we have the de­tails of the re­sponse avail­able. Let us look at them for ad­di­tional clar­ity.

Bha­gat Namde­v’s replies in his own words as cap­tured in Guru Granth Sahib are as fol­lows:

ਆਨੀਲੇ ਕਾਗਦੁ ਕਾਟੀਲੇ ਗੂਡੀ ਆਕਾਸ ਮਧੇ ਭਰਮੀਅਲੇ ॥
ਪੰਚ ਜਨਾ ਸਿਉ ਬਾਤ ਬਤਊਆ ਚੀਤੁ ਸੁ ਡੋਰੀ ਰਾਖੀਅਲੇ ॥1॥
ਮਨੁ ਰਾਮ ਨਾਮਾ ਬੇਧੀਅਲੇ ॥
ਜੈਸੇ ਕਨਿਕ ਕਲਾ ਚਿਤੁ ਮਾਂਡੀਅਲੇ ॥1॥ ਰਹਾਉ ॥
ਆਨੀਲੇ ਕੁੰਭੁ ਭਰਾਈਲੇ ਊਦਕ ਰਾਜ ਕੁਆਰਿ ਪੁਰੰਦਰੀਏ ॥
ਹਸਤ ਬਿਨੋਦ ਬੀਚਾਰ ਕਰਤੀ ਹੈ ਚੀਤੁ ਸੁ ਗਾਗਰਿ ਰਾਖੀਅਲੇ ॥2॥
ਮੰਦਰੁ ਏਕੁ ਦੁਆਰ ਦਸ ਜਾ ਕੇ ਗਊ ਚਰਾਵਨ ਛਾਡੀਅਲੇ ॥
ਪਾਂਚ ਕੋਸ ਪਰ ਗਊ ਚਰਾਵਤ ਚੀਤੁ ਸੁ ਬਛਰਾ ਰਾਖੀਅਲੇ ॥3॥
ਕਹਤ ਨਾਮਦੇਉ ਸੁਨਹੁ ਤਿਲੋਚਨ ਬਾਲਕੁ ਪਾਲਨ ਪਉਢੀਅਲੇ ॥
ਅੰਤਰਿ ਬਾਹਰਿ ਕਾਜ ਬਿਰੂਧੀ ਚੀਤੁ ਸੁ ਬਾਰਿਕ ਰਾਖੀਅਲੇ ॥4॥1॥

Trans­la­tion: (O Trilochan, as a boy) brings pa­per, cuts it and makes a kite, and flies it in the sky, keeps talk­ing with his friends, yet he keeps his at­ten­tion on the string (at­tached to the kite).1.

(O! Trilochan, my mind has been pierced by the Naam, like the gold­smith, whose at­ten­tion is held by his work (while talk­ing to cus­tomers he is pay­ing at­ten­tion to gold in the cru­cible atop a burn­ing fur­nace).1. Pause.

(O Trilochan) The young girls in the city take a pitcher (go out­side the city), fill it with wa­ter, laugh, play, and talk with friends, yet keep their at­ten­tion fo­cused on the pitcher of wa­ter.2.

(O Trilochan) cows are let loose out of a man­sion with ten gates, to graze in the field. Cows graze up to five miles away, but keep at­ten­tion fo­cused on calves (sim­i­larly, my ten or­gans work to earn liveli­hood for the body, yet my mind stays fo­cused on God).3.

Says Namdev (I give you one more ex­am­ple), lis­ten, O Trilochan: the child is laid down in the cra­dle, its mother works, in­side and out­side, yet she holds her child in her thoughts.4.1.

Guru Granth Sahib, page 972

The above an­swer, loaded with 5 prac­ti­cal il­lus­tra­tions from daily life, im­pressed Bha­gat Trilochan. He heeded the ad­vice and in­cor­po­rated it into his daily rou­tine. Af­ter the visit with Bha­gat Namdev, Bha­gat Trilochan re­turned back to his vil­lage and started serv­ing re­li­gious men­di­cants, who came that way, tak­ing a leaf again from Bha­gat Namdev Ji’s prac­tices. Slowly, the daily med­i­ta­tion and ser­vice of re­li­gious men trans­formed Trilochan, and he too be­came en­light­ened.

The take­away from this dis­cus­sion be­tween two spir­i­tual souls is the sig­nif­i­cance of aware­ness.

The take­away from this dis­cus­sion be­tween two spir­i­tual souls is the sig­nif­i­cance of aware­ness. The true re­al­ity is that most of us go through our lives like a ro­bot, with­out any aware­ness of what we are do­ing. Aware­ness means liv­ing every mo­ment with the con­scious­ness of self and what is hap­pen­ing around. It is not an easy change to in­cor­po­rate in life. This aware­ness will be­come an agent of change as it hap­pened with Bha­gat Trilochan af­ter his meet­ing with Namdev.

Aware­ness means liv­ing every mo­ment with the con­scious­ness of self and what is hap­pen­ing around.

Liv­ing a life of aware­ness is quite chal­leng­ing as it means for­get­ting the past and the fu­ture. Yet in life, we al­ways live in the mem­o­ries of the past or in the imag­i­na­tion of the fu­ture. How­ever, be­com­ing aware and liv­ing a life of aware­ness is liv­ing in the pre­sent and it is a true virtue. The jour­ney starts with be­com­ing aware of the body, pro­gress­ing to be­come aware of emo­tions, thoughts, feel­ings and moods.

The ul­ti­mate progress is when in­di­vid­ual aware­ness be­comes aware of uni­ver­sal aware­ness and merges in it. Kabir Ji is shar­ing that as­pect of the power of aware­ness.

An en­gi­neer by pro­fes­sion, hail­ing from Myan­mar, ed­u­cated in In­dia, Bhupin­der Singh is a Hous­ton-based busi­ness­man, with a keen in­ter­est in writ­ing books and ar­ti­cles on Sikh his­tory, mo­ti­va­tion and spir­i­tu­al­ity.