Je sukh deh ta tujheh araadhee, dukh bhee tujhai dhiaa-ee.
When you bless me with happiness, I worship You gratefully. Even in pain, I reflect on You.
Je sukh deh ta tujheh araadhee, dukh bhee tujhai dhiaa-ee.
When you bless me with happiness, I worship You gratefully. Even in pain, I reflect on You.
This simple but beautiful little verse from Gurbani, written by Guru Ram Das Ji, shows us a key principle by which to lead our lives and deal with both positive and negative experiences.
As we lead our daily lives, we are constantly tossed around by the waves of this ocean of material existence or Maya, this bhaujal, this stormy ocean, that we inhabit . We constantly experience ups and downs, and our experiences, both good and bad, affect our state of mind.
"Kabhoo jeearaa oobh chalat hai, kabhoo jai payaalay
Sometimes, the soul soars high in the heavens, and sometimes it falls to the depths of the nether regions.
These experiences, these ups and downs, can weaken our faith and move us away from God. Or, if we follow the simple principle shown to us by the Guru in this verse, we can use these same life experiences to help us to grow spiritually, to strengthen our relationship with God, and to lead a life of chardi kalaa.
It may be more obvious that pain and misfortune can shake our faith in God, but good fortune and successes can be even more insidious.
"Dukh daaroo sukh rog bhayaa" as Guruji tells us in Rehras Sahib – happiness can be a disease and pain can be a medicine….
Let us look at the effects of both sukh and dukh more closely:
What are some of our reactions when we are blessed with good fortune? Let us say we achieve some success in our profession or business, gain some kind of recognition, or we get to buy a new house or car, or we are blessed with a child.
Typically, we take pride in our achievement and take credit for our good fortune. We convince ourselves that we got something that we deserved. Our own ego is strengthened. We may even look down upon others who are not as fortunate as we are.
Ego or haumai is one of the greatest obstacles on the path of spiritual growth. Gurbani states emphatically that haumai is the enemy of Naam – both cannot inhabit our minds at the same time.
Furthermore, we feel that since this was so great, we need more of whatever made us happy – we yield to greed and hunger for more and more. We raise our expectation as to what it takes to make us happy, making it harder to obtain real satisfaction or fulfillment. Worse, instead of counting our own blessings, we compare ourselves with those who have more and indulge in envy.
We get more and more entangled in the cause of the "sukh" or happiness, spend much of our time in enjoying it, getting more of it, or preserving it, whatever the "it" may be, often becoming slaves to it, and waste more and more of this precious life in the pursuit of this ephemeral "happiness". We fall in love with the gifts with which God blesses us, and in the process we distance ourselves from the generous Giver of these gifts.
Furthermore, we feel that since this was so great, we need more of whatever made us happy – we yield to greed and hunger for more and more. We raise our expectation as to what it takes to make us happy, making it harder to obtain real satisfaction or fulfillment. Worse, instead of counting our own blessings, we compare ourselves with those who have more and indulge in envy.
We get more and more entangled in the cause of the "sukh" or happiness, spend much of our time in enjoying it, getting more of it, or preserving it, whatever the "it" may be, often becoming slaves to it, and waste more and more of this precious life in the pursuit of this ephemeral "happiness". We fall in love with the gifts with which God blesses us, and in the process we distance ourselves from the generous Giver of these gifts.
Furthermore, we feel that since this was so great, we need more of whatever made us happy – we yield to greed and hunger for more and more. We raise our expectation as to what it takes to make us happy, making it harder to obtain real satisfaction or fulfillment. Worse, instead of counting our own blessings, we compare ourselves with those who have more and indulge in envy.
We get more and more entangled in the cause of the "sukh" or happiness, spend much of our time in enjoying it, getting more of it, or preserving it, whatever the "it" may be, often becoming slaves to it, and waste more and more of this precious life in the pursuit of this ephemeral "happiness". We fall in love with the gifts with which God blesses us, and in the process we distance ourselves from the generous Giver of these gifts.
I fall in love with the gifts, but I forget the Giver.
To make matters worse, the more worldly belongings or successes we have, the more we get enmeshed in preserving them, and we are terrified of losing whatever we have obtained.
Those who seem to be great and powerful,are afflicted by the disease of anxiety.
ALLAH MALIK!
Sai baba let your holy lotus feet be our sole refuge.OMSAIRAM
Topic: Sukh Dukh (Read 12667 times)