Vahiguru ji ka Khalsa, Vahiguru ji ki Fatih!

When we become distracted by worldly pursuits and temptations and forget to focus on the One, the world seems to engulf us. Caught up with material desires and attachments, we become stagnant. The life-giving pool, meant for our nourishment, gets filled with the mud of attachment.

In the third composition of So Purakhu (That Being), Guru Nanak Sahib recognizes this condition of ours. The Guru says in that pool, the dwelling has taken place, where That One alone has created the fire-like water. The mud of attachment is there, where the foot cannot move; I have seen that many beings have drowned there.

We pause.
We reflect.

Are we caught up in desires and attachments?

Let’s explore the water-bed analogy of an ecosystem where the One, the Creator, and its creation coexist. Within the water bed, where creation lives in harmony with its life source, the “water” (1-Ness), fire-like temptations, desires, and attachments to all things material and immaterial affect all creation.

Imagine the swamps; amongst the vegetation is the mud that rises from the bottom of the waterbed. Consider the mud, the fire-like temptations that fill the swamp. Escaping from the mud is near impossible, for the mud is thick and concentrated, and one can get their foot stuck in the swamp.

It would be naive to think that this could not happen to us. The Guru emphatically says, I have seen many drownings. It happens to all of us.

If we can’t escape the mud, what can we do?

Maybe a continuous source of self-reflection to discover what is getting us trapped in the mud.

Can we develop a mechanism to recognize when we get stuck?
Can we develop an awareness to prevent us from drowning?

May we yearn to swim in the “life-giving pool.”
May the Wisdom-Guru guide us!