This week, we are called to dwell on our limited understanding, the false binary of pain and comfort. These things feel real to us. We are human beings experiencing all the suffering and joy that life has to offer! We ride the ebbs and flows of what it is to be alive. We suffer greatly. We experience incredible joy. Somewhere on earth, a wedding. Somewhere on earth, a funeral. Somewhere on earth, the gift of new life. Somewhere on earth, the sorrow of departing. The fact of these things coexisting can feel unmooring, creating a sense of unsteadiness and unease.

Who can know our greatest joys? Who can understand our greatest pains? And how can we live in this play of IkOankar (the One) without rushing to perform acceptance before we have truly experienced it?

For this, we turn to Guru Arjan Sahib’s Birhare, where we see expressions of the pain and longing of separation. In separation, we lack understanding of the play. In separation, we lose steadiness. In separation, we see comfort and pain as opposing. Guru Arjan Sahib gives us the words to move through this longing, addressing the One as Piare, Beloved:

You alone know the entire method, O Beloved! Before whom do I state, having told this?
You are the Giver of all beings; they wear and consume Your given gifts.
Comfort and suffering are in accordance with Your command, O Beloved! There is no other place.
Whatever You cause to do, that I do; O Beloved! Nothing else can be done.

What can we do when we are in pain? We can begin as the Guru does, by praising the all-knowing nature of the One. We can admit our smallness in the face of the vastness, in the midst of the unending play. In that realization, even in pain, we can express gratitude. We are in pain and we are too small to understand why. But what do we understand? We know that the One gives to all. We know that the One knows all. So who else would we go to and state the pain of the heart? Who else would we go to and state what ails us? The Guru shows us that even in our grief and lack of understanding, the Beloved is our true confidant. We may not know much. But we know that both comforts and pains, joy and suffering, unfold within the will of the One. The entire creation and its inhabitants are the delicate instruments of the One. Nothing exists outside of the One; there is no action outside of the will of the One.

What to do, then, in the endless oscillation of pain and joy, in all the hues of being human? We can embrace the will of the One. We can experience Nam, the Identification with the One. In understanding that we cannot understand, in this gratitude and appreciation for the Vastness, we can make all times beautiful and pleasant if we practice Praise, Remembrance, and Identification.

In our greatest joys, do we remember the One?
In our greatest pains, do we remember the One?

When we practice remembrance, we pull the Presence of the One into our every moment, such that all times, all contexts, all emotions, ‘good’ and ‘bad,’ can become beautiful. In this state, we come to know that the One Own-Self pervades in each and every body, in each and every heart.

The Guru ends with a universal plea for all seekers:

Nanak signature: Save me from the well, the world, O Beloved! I am in refuge of You, the All-Pervasive.

This world can be deep and dark. Our ignorance of all things can be deep and dark. We may not understand all things, but we can seek the refuge of the All-Knowing, the All-Pervasive, the Beloved. The all-pervasive One becomes the sanctuary from the pains born of our forgetfulness.

Guru Arjan Sahib points us to a deep presence with the One, gratitude regardless of what is happening, and an unspoken, heartfelt wish to feel the Grace accessible to all. ​

May we practice remembrance.
May we return again and again to the One, in thought, word, and action.

May the Wisdom-Guru guide us!