Favorites (1) Naanak Nadaree Karamee Daat

nwnk ndrI krmI dwq

Gurbani is the name we give for words written by the Sikh Gurus. Bani means "word" and the "Gur" prefix makes it mean "Words of the Guru."

Gurmukhi is the name given to the written script form of this language. The language itself is an older form of Punjabi (from Nothern India) which was in use 300 to 500 years ago. The first Sikh Guru, Guru Naanak, began doing a great deal of inspired and inspirational singing and teaching around the year 1500, when he was near the age of 30.

My memory is not terribly clear about the order in which I discovered my favorite lines or phrases of Gurbani that really moved me or which I related to immediately. Some of them I do remember very well and what order they came in. I do know that the first phrase I remember really resonating with was this one;

nwnk ndrI krmI dwq

The transliteration for this phrase is "Naanak nadaree karamee daat." Naanak is the first Sikh Guru. Nadaree means "Gracious or merciful Glance (of God). Karamee is a word for action, for the doing of something, and Daat means gifts. In the Guru, "Gifts" usually mean great gifts- great blessings. So this phrase means something like this: "Naanak says" that through the merciful glance (of God) great gifts are given."

This particular line - and also the URL name of my blog - occurs in JapJi - the morning "prayer" by Guru Naanak, which is commonly called "The Song of the Soul." I am not sure if I encountered it first in JapJi, but I think probably I found it somewhere else first during the course of my solitary studies of Sikhism online.

The very first time I heard this line it felt precisely like a description or explanation of my own experiences with Sikhism. By the time I came across this line, which must have been some months after all this started; I was experiencing the tearful bliss regularly during my meditation and while listening to Gurbani Kirtan (chanting). I was at peace inside myself like I had never been before. There were challenges and some tumultuous feelings in my outer life, but inside none of that changed the immense happiness I could experience almost anytime I listened to Gurbani being sung or read.

I felt then and I still feel that I had done little to deserve what had happened to me, yet this compassion had been implanted in me and I had been brought to this very joyful sikh path all seemingly by a lucky "accident" of someone happening to play that Shanti CD during my massage. So to me, it truly was as though the "Gracious glance of God" had been cast my way, and I then had the visions and came to the Sikh Gurdwara. My entire life was changed by those events and I had not even been seeking a spiritual path before all this happened. I still feel that this line more than any other describes the great good fortune that came my way.

Recently - only a few months ago, I took a hukam and in that hukam there was a line that said, "You reached down with Your long arm and pulled me up from the suffering of my life." I do not have the exact words nor the Gurmukhi for this - but I cried as I read this because it again describes the feelings I have about the way I came to this path. I had a beautiful vision relating to this the next day in my meditation, in which I saw myself grasped by this strong arm and pulled up and out of this life. I clasped my arms around the legs of this Gur/Savior, and held tightly while crying with gratitude. I remember asking if I could stay where I was and not return to my life on Earth, and was told I was to return and yet that I would always remain at the Guru's feet as I was at that moment. This brought a great wave of peace to me.

The link immediately below takes you to a very beautiful page about Sikh thoughts and perspectives about "Grace" - how it is obtained, and many lines of Gurbani are quoted and translated on that page. I found it by googling "Nadaree."

IF you want greater insight about this "Merciful Glance of God" this page will help a lot!

http://www.gurbani.org/webart154.htm

First Gurbani Words

The first time I paid any attention or had any real curiosity about any Gurbani words was when I went to the sikh Gurdwara for the first time and listened to Snatam Kaur take a random reading from the Sikh's most sacred book, "The Guru" (Siri Guru Granth Sahib). This was on April 15, 2004, and was actually a few days before the life-changing "vision" which I mentioned as the explanation for my choice of blog title. Such a random reading from the Sikh "Guru" is called a "Hukam" which means Divine Will or command. A Hukam can be interpretted as guidance for the day or as a key to understanding current events in one's life, an answer to a question in one's mind, or simply as inspiration for the day. Of course, I did not know what a Hukam was at that time, I had merely been invited to go into the Guru's room with Snatam Kaur and Guru Hari Singh for a short "ceremony."

Snatam took the Hukam in the way that is standard for those who can read Gurmukhi script; reading first the Gurmukhi and then following that with the English translation which is also written in some versions of the Guru. A number of phrases in the English translation of my first Hukam struck me intensely right away. Even the first words of that Hukam, "My eyes are wet with the nectar of the Lord" described the blissful and teary-eyed experiences I had been having while listening to sikh chanting during the previous month.

But there was another line that especially caught my attention; "Those who die while yet alive, are said to be Jeevan Mukhta" (depending on the translation - another version says "He who can experience death while still alive is known as Jeevan Mukhta.")

Since I had already been wondering about the possibility of my death being imminent because of other visions a month before, this sentence really sounded ominous to me.

The Gurmukhi for this line looks like this; (For those of you familiar with Gurmukhi, I took this version from Aasa Di Vaar instead of from the precise place the Hukam is found in the Guru - because the latter might have taken me a while to locate).

jIvn mukiq so AwkIAih mir

jIvY mrIAw

So the words "Jeevan Mukhta"

jIvn mKqw

became a very early object of my study because I wanted to understand what this Sikh "Guru" was saying about life and death. With a lot of study over some months, if not a full year, - (while going through many many other topics as well), I came to understand that becoming Jeevan Mukhta is one way of describing a Sikhs goal in life. One way to describe the kind of death being spoken of here is to call it an "ego death." This phrase is a little more common in the West. The Sikh's mean death to all attachments, death to all attachment to human desires. This does not mean taking no pleasures in life, but it means to not seek pleasures and not to expend effort to attain one's desires, and to not try to sustain or maintain whatever pleasures might come one's way. This then comes to much the same thing as what is meant by the title of my blog: "man jeetai jag jeet" - conquer your mind to conquer the challenges of this life.

This understanding of Jeevan Mukta also gave me a way of understanding the message of my "big vision" a different way. Rather than taking "Say goodbye to all you know and love" to mean I was going to die, it could mean to learn to practice detachment and thus change entirely the way you live life; say goodbye to a life of secular interests and desires. This made sense to me and it was consistant with another aspect of my life following that vision. After that vision I found myself satiated by just meditating and listening to Gurbani chanting. I found that I had very little desire to go looking for entertainment or things to do "for fun." Friends even had trouble talking me into going to the coast for a day trip. I was already happy just being immersed in my studies and meditation practice.