Fourth Master, Raag Sohee, Ang 733

When someone of ‘low’ social class chants Your Nam, he obtains the state of highest dignity. Go and ask Bidar, the son of a maid; Krishan himself stayed in his house. || 1 || Listen, to the unspoken speech of the Creator; it removes all anxiety, pain and hunger. || 1 || Pause || Ravi Das, the leather-worker, sang Your praises in each and every instant. Although he was of ‘low’ social status, he was exalted and elevated, and people of all four castes came and bowed at his feet. || 2 || Nam Dev loved You; the people called him a lowly fabric dyer. You turned Your back on the ‘high-class’ Khastriyas and Brahmins, and showed Your face to Nam Dev. || 3 || All Your devotees have the tilak, the ceremonial mark, applied to their foreheads at the sixty-eight sacred shrines of pilgrimage. Servant Nanak shall touch their feet night and day, if You grant Your grace. || 4 || 1 || 8 ||

Today’s Hukam is thought-provoking.

As the world argues about castes, my Guru speaks.

I listen.

Those considered ‘low’ caste by birth, meditated on Nam and achieved the highest state of liberation.

If you want proof, look no further than Bidar whose mother was a slave. All his life, he was taunted about his lineage. Yet Krishan came to his home instead of going to the palace. Bidar’s love received Krishan’s highest honor.

Ravi Das worked with rawhide. He remembered the Divine with every breath. His consciousness was dyed in Nam. Though the world called him a ‘low’ caste, he was the highest. And then came a time when all the other four social castes bowed before him.

The world saw Nam Dev as a lowly fabric dyer. The Brahmins and the Khatris refused to let him sing at their temple. They threw him out. The story goes thus: the temple turned its back on the Brahmins and faced Nam Dev. Such was the power of Nam Dev’s love for the Divine.

The proverbial sixty-eight places of pilgrimage bow at the feet of such true devotees of the Divine.

Another interpretation: Vision of such true devotees is like visiting all the sixty-eight places of pilgrimage.

The forehead of such true devotees shines with a light that dims out all other worldly lights.

So listen to these timeless eternal stories.

Meditate.

Your doubts and pain will be removed.

Says Nanak: Grace me to sit at the feet of such devotees day and night.

My Ardas: Unite me with the ones immersed in Nam; may they raise my consciousness and may I see the One in all.