Spiritual Union

Last night I got a Hukamnama that I have gotten many times in the last couple of years. I figured I should read the meaning deeper this time because there is something I am not understanding that Guru Ji is trying to convey to me again and again. It is from Raag Soohi, the raag of love and written by Guru Amardas Ji. It has the famous line “Third Mehl: They are not said to be husband and wife, who merely sit together. They alone are called husband and wife, who have one light in two bodies” (Ang 788). 

It starts “Shalok, Third Mehl: O bride, decorate yourself, after you surrender and accept your Husband Lord. Otherwise, your Husband Lord will not come to your bed, and your ornaments will be useless. O bride, your decorations will adorn you, only when your Husband Lord's Mind is pleased.  Your ornaments will be acceptable and approved, only when your Husband Lord loves you. So make the Fear of God your ornaments, joy your betel nuts to chew, and love your food. Surrender your body and mind to your Husband Lord, and then, O Nanak, He will enjoy you. “ In this first part of the Hukamnama, Guru Ji talks about the surrender that is needed on our spiritual quest. Give up the external parts and walk the internal path- the path of love. In Gurbani we are all the bride, and God is the groom. It goes on “Third Mehl: The wife takes flowers, and fragrance of betel, and decorates herself. But her Husband Lord does not come to her bed, and so these efforts are useless.” In the next part “Third Mehl: They are not said to be husband and wife, who merely sit together. They alone are called husband and wife, who have one light in two bodies.” We will discuss this line in more detail below. Finally the Pauri “Without the Fear of God, there is no devotional worship, and no love for the Naam, the Name of the Lord. Meeting with the True Guru, the Fear of God wells up, and one is embellished with the Fear and the Love of God. When the body and mind are imbued with the Lord's Love, egotism and desire are conquered and subdued. The mind and body become immaculately pure and very beautiful, when one meets the Lord, the Destroyer of ego. Fear and love all belong to Him; He is the True Lord, permeating and pervading the Universe.” In this section Guru Ji talks about the importance of having a Guru to develop fear and love for God, from there devotion grows, the ego is overcome, and one merges into their purpose. 

This line “They are not said to be husband and wife who merely sit together. They alone are called husband and wife, who have one light in two bodies” is read to the couple at the Anand Karaj to explain to the couple the spiritual journey they are walking on. We are all one Light. There is truly just One that is everything, encompassing the entirety of the energy of the universe. When we talk about the concept of soul, there isn’t a “my” and “yours” but rather just the soul is representative of that oneness inside of us. Then we have our bodies, the vessel that carries this mind for this lifetime. The mind is not self-realized. It becomes attached to the body and thinks that this body is it. It thinks it is defined by its characteristics here- I am Punjabi, 5’7” tall, a female, etc. The mind thinks it is defined by characteristics of what it has done in this life, whether good or bad. It identifies with its personality in this life. Yet it is not any of these things. The mind in reality needs to remove its veil of doubt, the veil of illusion. The veil of illusion is composed of all of the thoughts of the mind, and it prevents the mind from achieving its purpose. The mind becomes lost in thoughts. It becomes lost in its ego. It becomes lost in its definition of I, me, to the point that it cannot recognize the One. We cannot see, or hear the One even though Waheguru is everywhere. As we have discussed before the laavan teach us how to walk that spiritual path so that in the fourth stage, the fourth laav, we can have our mind break that illusion and finally realize that Waheguru was here all along. It’s doubt is gone, the ego is gone, and it becomes merged, unaffected by maya. What Guru Ji is expanding upon in this Hukam is that we physically can have our relationships here in this world, but we must remember that we are actually One. In an article, T. Singh talks about how our Homai, our ego, gets in the way of us unifying with our partner. He describes how to unify: “SGGS says that when we look upon the other person as part of us, all the differences disappear.” It is the five that break us up- kaam, krodh, lob, moh, hankaar. They create thoughts that create tension in our relationships, and we let them win.  The more we dig into maya the easier life seems. When I used to spend large amounts of time just absorbed into watching TV, or doing mindless activities busy in the world, life didn’t seem too difficult. As soon as I started monitoring my thoughts, and starting to stop some of my old habits, change my ways of thinking, to recognize the 5 and how they play, it became harder. Before maya won automatically because you weren’t even realizing you were playing the game. Now when you are trying to battle it out, to win and overcome the 5, life becomes a little bit more challenging. It has to come from a place of devotion and deep love that you play the game of life. 

I saw another post from Pritpal Singh Khalsa that was about how Guru Ji’s advice is useful for marriage. He describes that Gurbani is talking about “…two people so deeply united in consciousness that their inner light merges to become one light, one ‘jot’.” His article talks about how its easy at the beginning of a relationship for us not to notice the amount of effort that will be required in the long run. Uniting your consciousness means that there is a spiritual journey to be walked by both partners- both must change, both must grow, and be patient as each other grows. He says that sometimes you have to step back as the other person needs space, but a continual commitment to each other and Waheguru and communication about spiritual values and vision is important to survive conflicts and growth that arises. He says “A storybook relationship is something that many of us think we want but when it comes down to it, we find that it isn’t how things really work out… Often, what we find is that each of us brings to the relationship some things that are positive, but we also bring some things that can be negative. Initially we may be unable to see these things and have limited ability to work them out. But when two people can share a common spiritual center, it acts like a keel to stabilize the relationship, moving in the right direction; allowing any conflicts to be worked out directly or indirectly.” Most relationships starts with your head in the clouds but every relationship has its challenges as life happens. It is love to be patient, to grow, to give space. This is why love is not really searching, and waiting to meet that person who fulfills your list of a million things. It's not supposed to be perfect, the process of the spiritual transformation is not easy or flawless. It just is you working together on your spiritual paths to help each other along, so that ideally your minds can merge into that collective whole, one consciousness. Our time in these bodies is temporary, so the time that we spend with our most precious sangat is so important. The other thing that comes up again in Gurbani is also not to get too attached to your partner, because it is a temporary relationship. If you are instead in love with the One in your partner and all, that doesn't go away. So the expectation that someone will come into our life and just magically fulfill that emptiness that can only be fulfilled by the mind meeting Waheguru and finishing it's own path, is false. Someone else cannot fulfill that but you can walk with each other as you fulfill it. 

Upon reflecting on this Hukamnama it has a lot of advice that is both relevant for our worldly lives but also the spiritual path we all walk. The more Gurbani we read, the deeper into it we can understand more and more meanings. Each line has an infinite amount of knowledge if we keep digging deeper to understand its relevance to our lives. 

References
http://www.gurbani.org/articles/webart278.php

https://www.sikhdharma.org/two-bodies-one-light/