When we are children, we find ourselves leaning into our stubbornness. We may feel a resistance to being told what to do. We are hard-headed and inflexible. As adults, this tendency may reveal itself in certain moments. We might have two minds about things—an understanding of what we ought to be doing and a persistent inability to act on that understanding. As we navigate through our constantly changing relationships with IkOankar (the One), we may find ourselves running into this stubbornness, unable to abandon our own self-centered way of thinking in pursuit of becoming Wisdom-centered.

Sheikh Farid Ji offers us an invitation to reflect, asking:

The head that does not bow before the beloved Owner, what should be done with that head?

What keeps the head from bowing? It is a lack of humility. It is an ego that has been fed rather than chipped away at. In this state, self-centered and hardened, we become useless. Sheikh Farid Ji continues by answering the question he has posed—what should happen to that head?:

It should be burned beneath the earthen pot in place of firewood.

We pause.
The language here is stark, the imagery piercing.
We reflect.

Burning the body is to be avoided in Islamic contexts due to the practice of burying the dead in anticipation of the Day of Judgment. In this paradigm, the body must be as whole as possible. Sheikh Farid Ji explores this idea and presents stark imagery to jolt us out of our complacency. Sheikh Farid Ji implies, with his signature simplicity, that if the mind and head will not fulfill their true purpose, we might as well make them useful.

When we are steeped in arrogance, pride, and ego, even when we know what we ought to do, it is hard for that knowledge to penetrate through to a change in thinking and an eventual change in behavior.

We are reminded that these heads, these intellects, these ways of thinking, are not worth anything if they are not situated in humility and devotion to the Beloved—until they are living in harmony with the Command of the Beloved.

We are being urged toward self-surrender.
We are being urged toward remembrance and devotion.
We are being reminded that we need not act like a leader, authority, or a Sheikh who has all the answers.

If we remove pride, we eliminate pains, we eliminate our lack of success in the Divine path, and we end our separation. If we spend our whole lives not addressing this, if we wait till the end, we find that we regret it at the end, and in that panic and remorse, we do say things like, I might as well die. Sheikh Farid Ji brings us to those feelings that come from a place of urgency and regret now, so that we may still do something about them with the time we have.

If our hard-headedness is what ails us, let us become tender to the Beloved.
May we cultivate devotion.
May we become porous.
May we soften.

May the Wisdom-Guru guide us!