Vahiguru ji ka Khalsa, Vahiguru ji ki Fatih!

This week, we are drawn into the voice of Sheikh Farid, the 12th-century Sufi mystic whose words carry the ache of longing and the sweetness of surrender. Known as Fariduddin Ganj-i-Shakar—Treasure of Sweetness—his verses, preserved in the Guru Granth Sahib, cross every boundary, inviting us to remember what is essential: to love fully, to live honestly, to stay close to the One.

In his couplets, his words touch something profound. Not just the mind, but the heart. They awaken us—to the quiet pull within, to the truth we often forget, to the love we are made for.

As humans in the world, we deal in relationships. How do we navigate the complexities that permeate them? How do we traverse ever-changing landscapes within familial, social, and spousal contexts? In relationship with the One? What does it mean to remain loving through it all?

In the eighteenth stanza, Sheikh Farid guides us toward reflection:

O Farid! If there is greed, then what kind of love is it? If there is greed, then the love is false.
For how long can time be passed, while rain is falling upon cracked thatch?

We pause.
We reflect.

What does it look like when love is burdened by greed—when it is made temporary, heavy, and fragile?

As long as we cling to self-feeding desires—endless cravings, unquenched thirst, the ache of never feeling full—we cannot enter a love that is real or enduring. Not with the One, and not within our human bonds.

Greed bends love toward conditions. It closes the heart to the Divine, fueling a sense of separation. It erodes our ability to cultivate faith. In this perpetual lack of satiation, doubt quietly takes root. We enter into forgetfulness, drifting into frustration and lack of connection. We begin to pine.

Sheikh Farid invokes the imagery of rain on a cracked roof. How long can we sit under that roof before we get wet? How long before it inevitably begins to leak?

That crack in the roof is the greed within our love. Love mixed with greed cannot endure. It fractures easily—vulnerable to change, unable to withstand the changing weather, unable to protect or shelter us. Our love, when rooted in greed and transaction, cannot be true or lasting. This does not mean worldly love is inherently bad or unworthy our time! That worldly love, when made vast and greedless and devoid of score-keeping, holds incredible potential—the potential to raise us to the experience of Divine love.

May we love without expectation.
May we love without condition.
May our love become genuine.
May our love become steady.

May the Wisdom-Guru guide us!