He squeezes the food prepared at the homes of both men to expose Malik Bhago’s vices through the blood that oozes from his food, and Bhai Lalo’s virtues through the milk that flows from his. In this sakhi Guru Nanak is also setting an example of courage, of exposing wrong-doing and standing up against it.
Indeed, that is the very concept of sadh sangat – the company of the ethical. He is setting an example that we should choose those we associate with on the basis of their ethical values rather than the value of their wealth and power.
Through this action, Guru Nanak is leading us on how to conduct our everyday social lives. In this sakhi, Guru Nanak rejects the invitation of Malik Bhago, a person who is rich in material wealth but poor in ethical values, and accepts the hospitality of Bhai Lalo, a person who is poor in wealth but rich in moral virtues. The painting below is a picturization of a sakhi which describes one of the many ways Guru Nanak confronted actions and lifestyles that sustain kaljug. Our guru sahiban not only sang and wrote down gurbani, but also put its message into action in their daily lives to counter kaljug. A thread running through these three that I will focus on will be the gurbani concepts of har-ras (divine sensations) and an-ras (other sensations). I will make my point with the help of a well-known sakhi (life story) about Guru Nanak, and a sabad by Guru Ramdas, as well as its musical rendition by the most renowned ragi of the last several decades, Bhai Harjinder Singh Srinagar Wale and his brother Bhai Maninder Singh.
In this paper I discuss how gurbani kirtan (the musical rendering of gurbani) can help us overcome the social ills we perpetuate, often without awareness. However gurbani tells us in numerous sabad that we are immersed in lifestyles that sustain kaljug, lifestyles caught in a web of greed (lobh) and arrogance (ahankar) to such an extent that we are in denial about them we live in delusion (bharam). We often think of kaljug (an era of vices) as a distant notion that is not of our making.
In this presentation I reflect on some of the ways that Gurbani points to our human actions that sustain kaljug – across centuries, cultures, and continents, and then discuss how kirtan helps us overcome the vices.īody of Paper “Kaljug mein Kirtan Pardhana” : How Gurbani Kirtan Helps in Applying the Message of Sri Guru Granth Sahib Kaljug mein Kirtan Pardhana: How Kirtan Helps in Applying the Message of SGGS