This week we are drawn to the words of Guru Arjan Sahib in the composition of ‘Savaiye Sri Mukhbakya.’ The Savaiye are a poetic form used to express devotion, praise, and love. ‘Sri’ is a reverential title, while ‘Mukhbakya’ means ‘utterance from the mouth.’

In relationship with IkOankar (the One), we might be wondering how to communicate with One so Vast and expansive. We might be called to ask, what utterances might we say from the mouth? How might we speak to the One?

Guru Arjan Sahib utters:

O Primal Being! O Creator! You Yourself are the cause of the causes of the entire creation.
You are permeating all places, pervading in all the bodies.
You are seen pervading in the world; who can know Your play? You protect all, You Yourself are the Owner, O All-Pervasive!

We pause.

Guru Arjan Sahib gives us the language for praise, or an address, or even a conversation with the One.

We might not know how to approach the One who is the Doer and the Cause, the One who permeates all, the One whose play cannot be known.

We may fall into frustration about not being able to fully know this play, not being able to fully understand the One without limits, the Imperceptible.

We might become exhausted at fighting our own sense of duality, at trying to understand that there is only the One—that there is no other. We may find ourselves at a loss for words. We may conclude that we cannot describe the One.

We can state what it is that we do not know.
We can dive into this Vastness.

The Vastness of the One is not problem to be solved. It is a thing that is to be experienced with awe and gratitude. ​​And in that awe, in that gratitude, we are bowled over in devotion.

How incredible, that the One is the Parent of the world, the Support of all beings?
How incredible, that the One is the only Sovereign?
How incredible, that the One is all that is?

Guru Arjan Sahib takes us toward a kind of ecstatic realization:

Servant Nanak, the accepted devotee at Your door, is equal to You, is like You, O Supreme Being! What can one tongue describe?
Yes!
I devote! I devote! I devote! I devote! I always devote!

Guru Nanak Sahib, the accepted devotee at the door of the One, transformed such that there was no difference between the Guru and the One. This too is utterly awe-inspiring. How can we explain something like this?

Maybe this is not the task ahead of us.

Instead, we devote, we devote, we devote, we devote, we always devote.

May we remain in devotion, love, and praise at the door of the One.
May we dwell on the Vastness of the One in awe.
May we devote, over and over, to the One without end.

May the Wisdom-Guru guide us!