On the oc­ca­sion of Parkash Purab of Guru Nanak Sahib, let us look at what is fruit­ful and what’s fruit­less, as sug­gested by the founder of the Sikh re­li­gion through the hymns re­vealed by him, which are part of Guru Granth Sahib. Bhupin­der Singh delves into the Gu­ru’s teach­ings and pre­sents the cen­tral idea of the Sikh way of life.

THE RA­HAAO LINES OF A SHABAD CON­VEY its es­sen­tial mes­sage, while the other lines are sup­port­ing state­ments plus clar­i­fi­ca­tions to the cen­tral idea be­ing con­veyed in the Ra­haao lines. Here Guru Ji is say­ing:

“ਜਪਹੁ ਤ ਏਕੋ ਨਾਮਾ ॥ ਅਵਰਿ ਨਿਰਾਫਲ ਕਾਮਾ ॥੧॥ ਰਹਾਉ ॥”

Trans­la­tion: Med­i­tate on the Name of the One Lord. All other ac­tions are fruit­less. ||1||Pause||
Guru Granth Sahib, page 728

We see that there is em­pha­sis by Guru Nanak Dev Sahib is on “Naam Japna” or med­i­tat­ing on Naam. In this Shabad, Guru Ji shares how that process of “Naam Japna” takes place, which we will ex­plore. Guru Ji starts by em­ploy­ing the metaphor of milk and its trans­for­ma­tion to but­ter:

“ਭਾਂਡਾ ਧੋਇ ਬੈਸਿ ਧੂਪੁ ਦੇਵਹੁ ਤਉ ਦੂਧੈ ਕਉ ਜਾਵਹੁ ॥
ਦੂਧੁ ਕਰਮ ਫੁਨਿ ਸੁਰਤਿ ਸਮਾਇਣੁ ਹੋਇ ਨਰਿਾਸ ਜਮਾਵਹੁ ॥੧॥”

Trans­la­tion: Wash the ves­sel, sit it down and anoint it with fra­grance; then, go out and get the milk.
Add the ren­net of clear con­scious­ness to the milk of good deeds, and then, let it sit free of de­sires to cur­dle. ||1||
Guru Granth Sahib, page 728

The ves­sel or uten­sil is first to be washed with clean wa­ter and then it is set out in the sun to dry and dis­in­fect. Some writ­ers in­ter­pret the ves­sel as dis­in­fected with smoke from the in­cense stick, but in essence the idea of dis­in­fect­ing re­mains. Thus, the first step of clean­ing the ves­sel is the pu­rifi­ca­tion of the body/​mind. Then with the clean ves­sel go out to get the milk of good deeds. To this milk in the ves­sel, add the starter of med­i­ta­tion to fer­ment and leave it undis­turbed to cur­dle overnight mak­ing the yo­ghurt.

What is the cur­rent state of the ves­sel (a metaphor for the body/​mind) now? Guru Nanak Ji says: It is ut­terly soiled –“Bhaand­daa utt maleen” -Guru Granth Sahib, Page 730). Guru Ji says it is soiled with the thoughts of greed, guile­ful­ness, slan­der­ing, ag­gres­sion, etc. Ad­di­tion­ally, it is ob­sessed to hear its own praises and ever ready to trash oth­ers. It craves vi­o­lence, and ag­gres­sion makes it feel good.

It has been sci­en­tif­i­cally proven that ag­gres­sive events trig­ger dopamine re­lease to the mind pro­vid­ing it with thrill. So, Guru Ji says our body ves­sel is filthy. There is a tor­rent of thoughts in the mind. Many times those are con­stantly vac­il­lat­ing in na­ture. Even the types of thoughts that we get are not con­ducive to the re­mem­brance of God. Guru Ji says it needs to be washed, dried and made free from tox­ins. Where can such cleans­ing take place? Guru Ji pro­vides the place and the method­ol­ogy as:

“ਗੁਰੂ ਦੁਆਰੈ ਹੋਇ ਸੋਝੀ ਪਾਇਸੀ ॥
ਏਤੁ ਦੁਆਰੈ ਧੋਇ ਹਛਾ ਹੋਇਸੀ ॥
ਮੈਲੇ ਹਛੇ ਕਾ ਵੀਚਾਰੁ ਆਪਿ ਵਰਤਾਇਸੀ ॥”

Trans­la­tion: Through the Gur­d­wara, the Gu­ru’s Gate, one ob­tains un­der­stand­ing.
By be­ing washed through this Gate, it be­comes pure.
The Lord Him­self sets the stan­dards to dis­crim­i­nate be­tween good and evil.
Guru Granth Sahib, Page 730

Now the anal­ogy of clean­ing the ves­sel makes sense. The clean­ing that Guru Ji is talk­ing about is not of the phys­i­cal body clean­ing with the great clean­ing agent as wa­ter, but Guru Ji. is sug­gest­ing the cleans­ing of the thought processes. It is from Guru alone, the ra­tio­nale of right and wrong will emerge. This is the place for the start of a trans­for­ma­tion. The re­sult will be that the ag­gres­sive na­ture will be re­placed with a lov­ing na­ture, full of rev­er­ence. Then only that ves­sel will be­come clean, a suit­able re­cep­ta­cle for milk of good deeds.

Guru Ji refers to milk as the daily ac­tions in life. Milk sym­bol­izes pu­rity, as well as its nur­tur­ing qual­ity, the same way our ac­tions will be­come pris­tine, nur­tur­ing, with­out the traits of greed, lust, ag­gres­sion etc. So, when rev­er­ence is in­cul­cated within, the re­sults of the cleans­ing process will be­come man­i­fest, as Guru Ji shares:

“ਜਿਨ ਕਉ ਭਾਂਡੈ ਭਾਉ ਤਿਨਾ ਸਵਾਰਸੀ ॥
ਸੂਖੀ ਕਰੈ ਪਸਾਉ ਦੂਖ ਵਿਸਾਰਸੀ ॥
ਸਹਸਾ ਮੂਲੇ ਨਾਹਿ ਸਰਪਰ ਤਾਰਸੀ ॥੧॥”

Trans­la­tion: Those, whose minds are filled with rev­er­ence, will be em­bell­ished.
They are blessed with peace, and their pains and suf­fer­ings erad­i­cated.
Ab­solutely, with­out any doubt, they will be fer­ried across. ||1||
Guru Granth Sahib, Page 729 

The rev­er­ent at­ti­tude is a true in­ner adorn­ment, and it will be re­flected in daily life ac­tiv­i­ties. Then with that raised aware­ness, bereft of worldly hopes and ex­pec­ta­tions, to­tally de­tached from worldly de­sires, as the fer­ment (starter), ap­ply and leave it undis­turbed. The stilled mind de­void of thoughts will thus trans­form the milk of daily ac­tiv­ity into yo­ghurt. This is the process of trans­for­ma­tion of ris­ing above worldly de­sires. Guru Ji elab­o­rates on the fur­ther de­vel­op­ment process as:

“ਇਹੁ ਮਨੁ ਈਟੀ ਹਾਥਿ ਕਰਹੁ ਫੁਨਿ ਨੇਤ੍ਰਉ ਨੀਦ ਨ ਆਵੈ ॥
ਰਸਨਾ ਨਾਮੁ ਜਪਹੁ ਤਬ ਮਥੀਐ ਇਨ ਬਿਧਿ ਅੰਮ੍ਰਿਤੁ ਪਾਵਹੁ ॥੨॥”

Trans­la­tion: Let your mind be the hand­pieces, and then ever aware­ness as the churn-string churn it.
Ut­ter the Naam, the Name of the Lord, with your tongue, then the yo­ghurt will be churned. In this way, the Am­brosial Nec­tar is ob­tained. ||2||
Guru Granth Sahib, Page 728

With the two end hand­pieces as mind and the string of ever aware­ness churn the shaft back and forth with alert­ness. The de­sire­less tongue act­ing as the blades will churn the yo­ghurt of good deeds. In other words, the good deeds are done cred­ited to God as He chan­nelled those through the doer, in­stead of tak­ing credit for them as the doer. This process of churn­ing will pro­duce but­ter which will float to the top of the ves­sel. The but­ter is the metaphor for am­brosial nec­tar or wis­dom. Let us re­cap the steps:

1. Wash­ing the Ves­sel – This is the cleans­ing of the aware­ness.
2. Dis­in­fect­ing the Ves­sel – Keep­ing the mind pure and el­e­vated through the daily ac­tiv­i­ties amidst worldly temp­ta­tions. In short, be­com­ing a per­son of high char­ac­ter and clear con­scious­ness.
3. Adding the starter to fer­ment – Keep­ing the aware­ness in Supreme God.
4. Let it sit to be­come yo­ghurt from the milk – Be­com­ing de­tached to worldly de­sires.
5. End Hand­pieces of the churn-string – Keep­ing the watch­ful eyes over the daily ac­tions
6. Churn-string of aware­ness – Watch­ing over with each breath to en­sure that the mind is not be­ing lulled to sleep of un­aware­ness by the glit­ter of the ma­te­r­ial world.
7. Process of Churn­ing – Ut­ter­ing and re­mem­ber­ing the Di­vine Virtues with the tongue.
8. But­ter ris­ing to the top of the ves­sel – The Am­brosial Naam is ob­tained. God is ex­pe­ri­enced within.

We briefly saw the metaphor of mak­ing but­ter from milk be­ing em­ployed by Guru Ji to share the most sig­nif­i­cant mes­sage of Guru Ji’s teach­ings. In the process of mak­ing the but­ter, there is con­stant back and forth churn­ing, pro­duc­ing ag­i­ta­tion in the con­tents of the ves­sel. How­ever, out­wardly the ves­sel ap­pears to be in a state of com­plete rest with­out any move­ment at all. But the calm­ness is only on the out­side, yet in­side there is an ag­i­ta­tion of unique de­sire to con­nect with Naam. Guru Ji has shared the state of the mind of the seeker. Con­nect­ing with Naam im­plies re­mem­brance of the re­al­iza­tion that I am not the doer, just a medium through which the Doer – God, is do­ing.

Guru Ji con­tin­ues with the Shabad and pro­vides an­other metaphor of wash­ing the stat­ues of gods and mak­ing an of­fer­ing of flow­ers and petals to them. But for this dis­cus­sion, we will re­strict our­selves to the first metaphor of mak­ing but­ter and fur­ther ex­plore its nu­ances.

First, let us start with the ques­tion of ur­gency with all these ef­forts. Guru Ji says that the life that we are born with is fleet­ing away ap­proach­ing the end point. With each breath life is wind­ing down, Guru Ji wants us to be con­cerned about the soul:

“ਛੀਜਤ ਡੋਰਿ ਦਿਨਸੁ ਅਰੁ ਰੈਨੀ ਜੀਅ ਕੋ ਕਾਜੁ ਨ ਕੀਨੋ ਕਛੂਆ ॥੨॥”

Trans­la­tion: The string of life is dwin­dling thin un­in­ter­rupted day and night, and you have done noth­ing worth­while for your soul. ||2||
Guru Granth Sahib, Page 206 

Guru Ji clar­i­fies where the whole ef­forts have been mis­di­rected:

“ਲਬੁ ਕੁਤਾ ਕੂੜੁ ਚੂਹੜਾ ਠਗਿ ਖਾਧਾ ਮੁਰਦਾਰੁ ॥
ਪਰ ਨਿੰਦਾ ਪਰ ਮਲੁ ਮੁਖ ਸੁਧੀ ਅਗਨਿ ਕ੍ਰੋਧੁ ਚੰਡਾਲੁ ॥
ਰਸ ਕਸ ਆਪੁ ਸਲਾਹਣਾ ਏ ਕਰਮ ਮੇਰੇ ਕਰਤਾਰ ॥੧॥”

Trans­la­tion: Greed is a dog; false­hood is a filthy street-sweeper. Cheat­ing is eat­ing a rot­ting car­cass.
Slan­der­ing oth­ers is putting the filth of oth­ers into your own mouth. The fire of anger is the out­caste who burns dead bod­ies at the cre­ma­to­rium.
I am caught in these tastes and flavours, and in self-con­ceited praise. These are my ac­tions, O my Cre­ator! ||1||
Guru Granth Sahib, Page 15

Guru Ji wants us to redi­rect our ef­forts in col­lect­ing am­brosial nec­tar of Naam as all other en­deav­ours are fruit­less. Be­cause that Naam alone is the sav­iour in this world and in the af­ter­world. Guru Ji has de­clared that:

“ਤੇਰਾ ਏਕੁ ਨਾਮੁ ਤਾਰੇ ਸੰਸਾਰੁ ॥”

Trans­la­tion: Your Name alone, Lord, saves the world.
Guru Granth Sahib, Page 24 

Guru Ji ex­plains the process of “Naam Japna” as:

1. To ut­ter/​sing praises of God with a word or a string of words
2. To hear those words be­ing said/​sung
3. By singing the praises, try to in­ter­nal­ize those in the heart
4. To el­e­vate one’s own char­ac­ter em­u­lat­ing the char­ac­ter­is­tics heard in the process of “Naam Japna”

Thus, “Naam Japna” is to in­ten­tion­ally re­mem­ber and in­ter­nal­ize God or re­side Him in the heart, mind, and soul. There is tremen­dous power in re­mem­brance which we have never ex­plored. It brings us closer to whom we re­mem­ber, strength­en­ing faith. It builds pos­i­tive feel­ings and af­firms the pow­ers of God. Guru Ji says their com­ing to this world is fruit­ful in these words:

“ਆਇਆ ਤਿਨ ਕਾ ਸਫਲੁ ਭਇਆ ਹੈ ਇਕ ਮਨਿ ਜਿਨੀ ਧਿਆਇਆ ॥”

Trans­la­tion: Fruit­ful is the com­ing of those, who med­i­tate sin­gle-mind­edly on Him.
Guru Granth Sahib, Page 579

Ref­er­ences:

1. Sikhi­tothe­max.com
2. https://​www.live­science.com/​2231-hu­mans-crave-vi­o­lence-sex.html

Note: Il­lus­tra­tions by the au­thor.