2685 - Khajana Darshan March 28, 2024 – France
2685 - Khajana Darshan March 28, 2024 – France
English Transcription and Translation
Transliteration Key for Gurbaanee and Dhaarnaas
Black text - as uttered by Baba Ji in English;
Blue text - English translation of Baba Ji’s Gurmukhi utterances.
Every letter, every word, written in this document is because of Maharaj Ji’s grace. The translation (blue text) reflects the translator’s understanding at their state of consciousness and is not the final interpretation.
ੴ ਸਤਿਨਾਮ ਕਰਤਾ ਪੁਰਖੁ ਨਿਰਭਉ ਨਿਰਵੈਰੁ ਅਕਾਲ ਮੂਰਤਿ ਅਜੂਨੀ ਸੈਭੰ ਗੁਰਪ੍ਰਸਾਦਿ॥
॥ ਜਪੁ॥
ਆਦਿ ਸਚੁ ਜੁਗਾਦਿ ਸਚੁ॥ ਹੈ ਭੀ ਸਚੁ ਨਾਨਕ ਹੋਸੀ ਭੀ ਸਚੁ॥
ਐਸੇ ਕਾਹੇ ਭੂਲਿ ਪਰੇ ॥
aisay kaahay bhool paray.
I was saying that if somebody asks us: what is life? All of us would give our own definitions of life. Somebody would say it’s a garden of roses. Others would say it’s a path of thorns. Some would say life has everything to offer. Some would say life has only misery to offer. But the question was what is life?
God is life!
Schools, colleges, streets, bazaars, most of the homes, don’t urge children to think, and think deeply. They give the ready made answers. I taught for two years in a university. The first year was ok. The second year started, and the same thing had to be taught, like a parrot. a+b squared is equal to a squared + b squared + 2ab. I asked myself - is this life? Maharaj Ji talks about life. He urges us to think. He urges us to stop, sit down, relax, and think where are you going? Do you know the path you’re on, where it is going to end? Can you see that? We give phones to small children and the poor innocent children are robbed of their wonderful faculty of thinking. No need to think!
The story is very deep. After doing sangat for dozens of years, if one understands, they only understand a little bit. Why? The reason is because we have forgotten how to ponder over something. We have become totally deaf because there is so much noise outside and inside. What should I hear? There is so much noise! It’s not on purpose. We didn’t even realize when this happened but now we don’t hear anything.
I was saying that during the Second World War, there was this Jewish gentleman, Viktor Frankl. Like many other Jews, he was also in a concentration camp. In that camp both his parents, brother and wife were sent to the gas chambers and he himself never knew when his turn was going to be up. If we are awake, we will find that everywhere God is speaking or saying something out of someone’s mouth or some other person. During that dreadful period of his life somebody in that camp said, we don’t have any control over the outside environment but we have control over our inner environment. He heard it! He started thinking about it, asking about it. Finally he learned how to go within and he grew within. He found that he had no control over the events outside, but inside he had full control. There he found freedom, which he called the real freedom. With God’s mercy, he was saved and later on he wrote a book called The Real Human Freedom. He recognized that to be outside of a jail does not mean you are free and inside a worldly jail, you can become free. Even inside the worldly jail, you can become free. The freedom is the freedom from the mind, freedom from the idea of I-ness, “me”. How beautiful!
The first day we started…. (Baba Ji pauses). When I said “the first day we started,” some voice said, “you started?” Everything is happening under His will; as He is willing.
ਐਸੇ ਕਾਹੇ ਭੂਲਿ ਪਰੇ ॥
aisay kaahay bhool paray.
Oh my dear one, how come you are wandering like this, in an unhappy, sad state, carrying wounds, resentments, regrets?
If we understand the secret of Gurbani; how to experience Gurbani and where to let the Gurbani hit.
When He’s asking us how come your state is like this? What He’s really asking us, hidden behind these words is, that the way you are is the proof that you made the wrong choice somewhere.
Life gives us opportunities at every step. We are all here in His court right now. We all have equal opportunity to take something from here but we will all take something different; something that we choose to take. Maharaj Ji says the story of life starts here - one who makes the right choice wins, and the one who makes the wrong choice loses.
Just in these four small words - aisay kaahay bhool paray, He’s really telling us that
life is about making a choice; it’s not about chance. It’s about making a choice. That determines our destiny, not chance.
Behind these four words is hidden a big truth about life; a formula to win the game of life. The secret of life, the secret of knowing what Gurbani says - it’s not about running fast, it’s about standing at one point and drowning there. That will take us to life. And what is life? God!
Please remember we all are given equal opportunities but not all of us are going to reach the finish line; the finish line where there is the recognition, the full knowledge that “I” have never been. What a fool of the fools I’ve been, calling this “me” or “I”. You recognize what this is and the game has been won! It’s strange that we have to say it this way, but there remains no one to win; there’s no winner! The one who was running is no more. So who won it? (Baba Ji laughs).
But Maharaj Ji says:
akhree likhan bolan baan.
That we can only talk through the words.
ਜਿਨਿ ਏਹਿ ਲਿਖੇ ਤਿਸੁ ਸਿਰਿ ਨਾਹਿ ॥
jin ayhi likhay tis sir naahi.
These words are too small to talk about the Divine.
ਐਸੇ ਕਾਹੇ ਭੂਲਿ ਪਰੇ ॥
aisay kaahay bhool paray.
We should become so intensely focused at the hirdaa and become so profoundly absorbed in singing and hearing and feeling our insides that we should lose our sense about the body; because we are not the bodies.
ਐਸੇ ਕਾਹੇ ਭੂਲਿ ਪਰੇ ॥
aisay kaahay bhool paray.
ਕਾਚ ਬਿਹਾਝਨ ਕੰਚਨ ਛਾਡਨ
kaach bihaajhan kanchan chhaadan
He says you may not find it, but I will tell you that you are wandering in the bazaar of glass, while you’re supposed to be in the bazaar of truth. You made the wrong choice.
ਬੈਰੀ ਸੰਗਿ ਹੇਤੁ ਸਾਜਨ ਤਿਆਗਿ ਖਰੇ ॥
bairee sang hayt saajan ti-aag kharay.
You let go of your true friend and made friendship with your enemy, the mind, which has taken you into the bazaar of glass and which is going to keep you there. You made a wrong choice, in choosing a guide. You should have chosen your true friend. He dwells with you all the time.
ਐਸੇ ਕਾਹੇ ਭੂਲਿ ਪਰੇ ॥
aisay kaahay bhool paray.
Ji, that daughter of mine from Iran who asked about how to open the heart. Betay (dear child) please let us start with focusing at the heart, focusing at that area. The first thing we have to learn is to listen.
Many of us have been doing sangat for a long time. Even after thousands of deewans, we have not heard anything. We must think about it - do I hear anything? Today is the third deewan in France and we have started to sing. Why couldn’t we sing during the first two days? Because we were rusty. If we had heard something, how could we have been rusty?
After seven stanzas of Japji Sahib in which he talks so deeply, Maharaj Ji says, stop, did you hear what I said?
Ji, no, I was thinking what you would say next.
That’s why I stopped you.
Please think about it - why did He ask this after uttering seven stanzas of Japji Sahib? Why? Because, if He asked us in the beginning - did you hear, would we have understood what He was asking? We would have just said, yes, I hear with my ears. Later on, we found out what is hearing; I don’t know anything. I recite prayers everyday, I recite them loudly but still I don’t hear anything. Please understand how God is so worried - He makes us understand in so many different ways. How compassionate He must be, how He feels our pain!
Please listen while remaining focused at the hirdaa, the heart area.
Guru Nanak Dev Ji Maharaj in His tenth appearance, says:
ਮਿਤ੍ਰ ਪਿਆਰੇ ਨੂੰ ਹਾਲੁ ਮੁਰੀਦਾਂ ਦਾ ਕਹਣਾ ॥
mitar pi-aaray noo haal mureedaaN daa kahnaa.
ਤੁਧ ਬਿਨੁ ਰੋਗੁ ਰਜਾਈਆਂ ਦਾ ਓਢਣੁ
tuDh bin rog rajaa-ee-aaN daa odhan
That without You oh my beloved, the warmth of the quilts is a disease. I find it a disease.
ਨਾਗ ਨਿਵਾਸਾਂ ਦੇ ਰਹਣਾ ॥
naag nivaasaaN day rahinaa.
While enjoying the warmth of the quilts, I have moved away from You and now I’m living in the company of serpents; serpents of lust, anger, greed, etc.
ਯਾਰੜੇ ਦਾ ਸਾਨੂੰ ਸੱਥਰ ਚੰਗਾ ਭੱਠ ਖੇੜਿਆਂ ਦਾ ਰਹਣਾ ॥
yaara-rhaay daa saanoo sathar chaNgaa bhath khay-rhi-aaN daa rahinaa.
To enjoy the worldly pleasures is like being in an oven, and to be with my true friend even on a bed of straws is so beautiful! But, the worldly comforts are like being in an oven, to remain burning.
Dhaarnaa:
ਤੇਰੇ ਦਰਦ ਦਾ ਤੀਰ ਅੱਜ….. ਵੱਜਿਆ ਵੇ
tayray dard daa teer aj…. vaji-aa vay
ਜਿਸ ਨਿੱਘ ਨੂੰ ਮੈਂ….ਪਿਆਰਦੀ ਰਹੀ
jis nigh noo maiN……pi-aardee rahee
ਰੋਗ ਰਜਾਈ ਦਾ ਅੱਜ ਉਹ……ਲੱਗਿਆ ਵੇ
rog rajaa-ee daa aj oh…. lagi-aa vay
ਖੇੜੇ ਲੱਗਦੇ ਸੀ ਅੱਗ ਬੁਝਾਉਣ ਵਾਲੇ
khay-rhay lagday see ag bujhaa-oun vaalay
ਦਿੱਸੇ ਭੱਠ ਤਾਂ ਯਾਰ ਮੈਂ ਮੰਗਿਆ ਵੇ
disay bhath taaN yaar maiN maNgi-aa vay
The worldly warmth, the worldly pleasures, the worldly comforts - I thought they would make me peaceful, content, but instead they have made the fire more powerful. Now I recognize that the worldly comforts, pleasures - all those are to be in an oven. Recognizing that, today I’m begging for my true Beloved. I have heard that He makes us peaceful; in His company we become content, in His company we recognize what love is, in His company we recognize what life is.
Dhaarnaa (end)
Maharaj Ji says:
ਹੋਵਨੁ ਕਉਰਾ ਅਨਹੋਵਨੁ ਮੀਠਾ
hovan ka-uraa anhovan meethaa
Maharaj Ji says, the one who “is”; only He is, He is bitter to you; God is bitter to you. And the ones who are not; all these relatives of yours, they are not yours, they are for themselves; they are sweet to you. So beautiful! Just see how He says this in just four words!
ਬਿਖਿਆ ਮਹਿ ਲਪਟਾਇ ਜਰੇ ॥
bikhi-aa meh laptaa-ay jaray.
By doing so, you are consuming poison, and that’s why you are unpeaceful; you’re burning!
My daughter, who asked about opening the heart; it opens through hearing. Once we start hearing or listening it would open and it’s an ocean of ishq! Listening happens to the rarest of the rare ones! So the next few days we are going to remain focused at the heart area; even when we talk to each other we should talk while remaining connected to our heart.
Dhaarnaa:
ਖ਼ਤ ਇੱਕ ਪਾਇਆ ਸੀ….ਤੇਰੀ ਓਸ ਉਮਰੇ ਨੀ….ਤੇ ਅੱਜ ਇਕ….. ਲਿੱਖਿਆ ਈ ਆ
khat ik paa-i-aa see….tayree os umray nee…..tay aj ik….likhi-aa ee aa
You were young at the time when I sent you my first letter. And now you have grown up somewhat on this path and there is another letter I’m writing to you.
ਖ਼ਤ ਨਹੀਂ ਇਹਦੇ ਵਿੱਚ….ਰੱਚਿਆ ਏ ਆਪਾ ਮੇਰਾ….ਜੀਹਨੂੰ….. ਤੇਰੇ ਨਾਲ ਤੁਰਨ ਦਾ ਚਾਅ
khat nahee ihday vich…..rachi-aa ay aapaa mayraa….jeeHnoo…. tayray naal turan daa chaa
This is not just a letter. My whole being is in these words, and my whole being is anxious to walk with you. Would you walk with me? In the last letter you were young, you didn’t know how to walk, you could hardly sit. Then you had to learn to crawl; now you are of the age of walking and I want to walk with you. Would you walk with me?
ਸੁਣਨ ਦਾ ਦਰ ਮਿਲੇ….ਰੂਹ ਦਾ ਰੱਬੀ ਘਰ ਮਿਲੇ……ਹੱਥ ਜੋੜ ਜੋੜ ਕਰ ਨੀ ਦੁਆ
sunan daa dar milay……rooh daa rabee ghar milay……hath jorh jorh kar nee du-aa
Keep your hands folded before Him all the time and keep begging Him that you should become capable of listening so that you can go home.
Which is the door from where to listen to God? These ears are not for listening to Gurbani or His talk. These ears are for worldly talk. The door where the Gurbani is heard, that door is somewhere else. Please ask Him to show you that door.
Link to all the singing portions in this Khajana Darshan - Gurbani and Dhaarnaas