Day 6, Day 7

To summarize this week’s visit with sri raga:  Delusion, illusion, fantasy, confusion, self-deception, mis-perception, medication, intoxication, clear the mind’s pre-occupation, dispelled by love and meditation, springs a life of contemplation, resonating true vibrations, absorbing One light’s permutation, drenched in peace, sweet liberation. (If I were 40 years younger, maybe I could turn this into a rap.)

In sri raga the Guru speaks directly, scolding and laughing at the same time. How ridiculous the attachment to material impermanent things can seem to the ones who have explored the world of the infinite. Guru Nanak shows the futility of even the aesthetics who seek to find union through all kinds of austerities and powers. To those who want to remove themselves from the world, he takes it to the extreme and points out that even if you lived in a cave for a million years without sleeping and removed yourself from even the sun and moon, you still couldn’t express the greatness of the Name. Or for those who think covering themselves in ashes is a holy thing to do, he asks what if you were ground up and burned to become the ash itself? You still couldn’t express the greatness of the Name. Or for those, who like me, try to find the words to write, he reminds us that even if you had hundreds of thousands of piles of paper, an endless supply of ink, and a pen that wrote at the speed of the wind, you still couldn’t express the greatness of the Name.