When­ever there is a death in a Sikh fam­ily, the be­reaved fam­ily takes re­course to Bani -re­vealed word of the Ninth Mas­ter -Guru Tegh Ba­hadur, for so­lace and com­fort in the dif­fi­cult hour, es­pe­cially the con­clud­ing com­po­si­tion in Guru Granth Sahib com­pris­ing of 57 stan­zas, men­tioned as Sa­lok Ma­halla 9 by Guru Tegh Ba­hadur Ji. It em­bod­ies the soul’s jour­ney from a use­less life jour­ney -ਜਨਮੁ ਅਕਾਰਥ ਕੀਨੁ to be­ing im­mersed in God Almighty  – ਰਾਮ ਨਾਮੁ ਉਰ ਮੈ ਗਹਿਓ. Spir­i­tu­ally-in­clined au­thor Bhupin­der Singh dwells on the im­por­tance of these hymns in one’s life, as ex­plained by the Guru.

DES­PITE THE IN­EVITABIL­ITY OF DEATH, fac­ing it and all its ram­i­fi­ca­tions be­comes dif­fi­cult and un­bear­able.  The Ninth Mas­ter in Sa­lok Ma­halla Ninth props us through his soul­ful ren­di­tion.

Guru Tegh Ba­hadur  Ji starts with how we all are en­gaged in sen­sual plea­sures, while the noose of death is ever-tight­en­ing. In the first stanza, Guru Ji de­clares that the life was given to live in re­mem­brance, but it has been wasted in vain, with­out singing praises of God. Guru Ji wants us to adore our source (of life) just as fish adores (its life source) wa­ter (1).

Guru Ji wants us to de­tach our­selves from vice, as that will lead us to be caught in the noose of Yama (2).

Al­ready the youth pe­riod is over and old age has over­taken the body, death is ap­proach­ing (3).

De­spite this fac­tual re­al­ity, the re­al­iza­tion of in­evitabil­ity is not down­ing, and med­i­ta­tion has not taken hold (4).

What are the rea­sons? Guru Ji an­swers that the mind is pre­oc­cu­pied with wealth, wife, and pos­ses­sions, which will not ac­com­pany us (af­ter death) (5).

Next, Guru Ji talks about the Re­deemer- hope of the fallen as well as the dis­peller of all fears (6).

He abides within us, has given us hu­man body and wealth (7), pos­ses­sions, beau­ti­ful house, and other ma­te­r­ial com­forts, still, the mind does not re­mem­ber Him (8).

Guru Ji says through re­mem­brance you could have at­tained sal­va­tion (9).

But the span of re­main­ing life is get­ting con­stantly dwin­dling (10).

Re­mem­brance is the de­stroyer of all fears and erad­i­cates evil-mind­ed­ness (20).

Guru Ji re­minds us that the body is made of five el­e­ments, which upon death shall merge back into the same source from where they orig­i­nated (11). Guru Ji shares that the unique as­pect of the hu­man body is that God dwells within it, so He asks us to re­mem­ber Him to cross the fear­ful worldly ocean (12).

De­scrib­ing the per­son who is one with God, Guru Ji de­scribes the qual­i­ties of that per­son as:

Not af­fected by plea­sure or pain (13)

Not af­fected by greed, at­tach­ment, or pride (13)

Not af­fected by praise or slan­der (14)

Treats gold and iron as same (14)

Is not af­fected by joys or sor­rows (15)

Treats friends and foes alike (15)

Fright­ens none nor fears any­one (16)

Is free from vices and has adopted an at­ti­tude of de­tach­ment in life (17)

Has freed self from the grip of Mam­mon (Maya) and is de­tached from all en­tan­gle­ments (18)

Has given up his ego, re­al­iz­ing that the real doer is God (19)

Has re­nounced his pos­ses­sive­ness, greed, at­tach­ment, ego­tism, and he will him­self swim across and help many oth­ers to swim across (22)

Such a per­son pos­sess­ing these qual­i­ties has at­tained sal­va­tion while alive (19).

Guru Ji shares that the path to sal­va­tion is built on Naam. The ben­e­fit of Naam is that it is the de­stroyer of all fears and erad­i­cates evil-mind­ed­ness (20).

The Naam is to be re­cited with tongue and the seeker should lis­ten to the sounds with his own ears (21).

Guru Ji says the whole world is just a dream se­quence, not real, and the only re­al­ity in it is God (23) and the rest is Maya (per­ish­able and il­lu­sion of re­al­ity) with an ex­piry date. Know­ing that life is a dream and then re­al­iz­ing that noth­ing can be taken with you erad­i­cate pride from within (41). Guru Ji de­scribes the Maya as:

Every­one is busy chas­ing Maya day and night, hardly any­one re­mem­bers God (24).

Maya is like bub­bles in wa­ter form­ing and dis­si­pat­ing con­tin­u­ously (25).

Mor­tals blinded by Maya don’t re­mem­ber God even for a mo­ment, con­se­quently, they get caught in the noose of death (26, 30, 31).

The pre­cious hu­man life should have been yoked to God (in re­mem­brance) to achieve eter­nal bliss (27).

How­ever, run­ning wild in the chase of Maya, life be­comes fu­tile (28).

Re­mem­brance of God should have trans­formed life, by trans­form­ing the seeker to an im­age of God (29).

In cel­e­bra­tions, you will find many will­ing part­ners join­ing in, but in ad­ver­sity, you will find your­self with­out a friend. Guru Ji says to med­i­tate on One God alone, who helps at the end (32).

De­spite wan­der­ing clue­lessly through nu­mer­ous life cy­cles, the fear of death did not de­part. But med­i­ta­tion of God could have made you fear­less (33).

De­spite your rig­or­ous ef­forts, the pride has not been dis­pelled, so seek the bless­ings of God to achieve it (34).

With­out re­mem­brance, all three stages of life – child­hood, youth, and old age are wasted (35).

En­tan­gled in greed the need has not been done in life, now what use are the re­grets (36).

Mind ab­sorbed in Maya is like a carved statue on the wall which can­not be erased (37).

Mind ab­sorbed in Maya had false hopes/​ex­pec­ta­tions, but some­thing else tran­spired. He plot­ted to cheat oth­ers but find him­self with a noose around his neck (38).

Made all ef­forts of chas­ing plea­sures and avoid­ing sor­rows, but what­ever is or­dained by God has come to pass (39).

The en­tire mankind is a beg­gar and only One giver, so med­i­tate on Him to get all your wishes ful­filled (40).

Pride in the body is false as that can per­ish in any given in­stant, in­stead of singing praises of God thereby con­quer­ing the world (42).

The mind steeply ab­sorbed in God be­comes lib­er­ated, be­com­ing just like God (filled with virtues) with no dif­fer­ence (43).

Guru Ji says to con­sider those en­gaged in other pur­suits be­sides re­mem­brance of God as dogs and swine (44).

But Guru Ji no­tices a pos­i­tive trait of loy­alty to their mas­ters in dogs and asks us to de­velop sim­i­lar loy­alty with the one­ness of mind and heart (45).

Guru Ji says rit­u­als as do­ing pil­grim­age, fast­ing or char­ity will not get you closer to the goal, in­stead, they will fill you with pride. These rit­u­als are fu­tile, like the bath of the ele­phant (46).

The prime of life has been dis­si­pated in fu­tile pur­suits, with old age tak­ing hold, com­plete with head trem­bling, gait stag­ger­ing, poor eye­sight, yet the elixir of life has not been tested (47).

Don’t hold hope in oth­ers, as none can help; in­stead, cul­ti­vate God’s de­vo­tion (ar­dent love) which is ever­last­ing (48).

Guru Ji next dis­cusses the im­per­ma­nent na­ture of the world with these rev­e­la­tions:

The world is im­per­ma­nent, like a wall of sand con­stantly erod­ing only to dis­ap­pear (49).

Sit­ing promi­nent his­tor­i­cal fig­ures Guru Ji shares the im­per­ma­nence na­ture of the world where Rama passed away, even Ra­vana de­spite the sup­port of his huge fam­ily could not es­cape death (50).

Guru Ji ad­vises us not to get alarmed by the im­per­ma­nence na­ture of the world, by re­mind­ing us that noth­ing is ever­last­ing here (51).

Guru Ji adds that every­thing cre­ated is des­tined to die, it is just a mat­ter of time – to­day or to­mor­row, so set­ting aside other en­tan­gle­ments, just sing praises of God (52).

With strength de­pleted, bondages im­posed there is no sign of re­lief. Guru Ji says to seek refuge with God and pray for help, as He helped the mytho­log­i­cal ele­phant (53).

(The re­sult is) Strength is re­vived, bondages are re­moved, all mea­sures (for re­lief be­come avail­able. Nanak, every­thing is in Your hands, You are my suc­cour (54).

All friends and com­pan­ions have de­serted, no one re­mains to help. In such a predica­ment God alone is my sup­port (55).

Naam re­mains, saints, re­main, and the Guru who is one with God re­main for­ever.(Yet) hardly any­one in this world re­cites Gu­ru’s Mantra (Naam) (56).

I have en­shrined Naam in my heart, noth­ing is equal to it in this world. Its med­i­ta­tion erad­i­cates all trou­bles and suf­fer­ings, and a glo­ri­ous vi­sion of God is ex­pe­ri­enced (57).

We have taken a brief overview of 57 Sa­loks by Guru Tegh Ba­hadur Ji which form the epi­logue of Guru Granth Sahib. There is a strong be­lief that these were writ­ten by Guru Tegh Ba­hadur Ji in Delhi be­fore his mar­tyr­dom. The main themes that Guru Ji has shared with us are that life in this world is frag­ile and its sure cul­mi­na­tion is in death. There is no mor­tal who can be a sup­port in this world, so seek only true sup­port of Naam of God. Guru says ex­pe­ri­ence the merger with God while alive, end­ing the great­est fear of death and be­com­ing free of cy­cles of re­births.

Note:  The num­bers in the paren­the­ses are the stanza num­bers of the Sa­loks.

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