ਜਪੁਜੀ ਸਾਹਿਬ ਪਉੜੀ ੩੬-੩੭ (ਭਾਗ ੧) | Japji Sahib 36-37 (Part 1) — Saram Khand: The Forging of the Mind

In this katha on Pauri 36 of Japji Sahib, Giani Sant Singh Ji Maskeen expounds two of the five khands laid out by Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji — ਗਿਆਨ ਖੰਡ, the realm where knowledge blazes, and ਸਰਮ ਖੰਡ, the realm of effort. He first places the pauri within the whole map: Dharam Khand, Giaan Khand, Saram Khand, Karam Khand and Sach Khand, with absorption in the True One as the purpose of human life. In Giaan Khand, he explains, the seeker no longer sees the Divine as a person but as one all-pervading power, and the unstruck sound and countless wonders of that state make worldly entertainment lose its pull — not by suppression, but because the essence of all music and all spectacle has already been tasted within. The heart of the discourse is the word ਸਰਮ. He distinguishes the Sanskrit sense — labour, toil, hard grinding effort — from the Persian sense of shame, and argues that here Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji names the realm of the hardest work there is. Where Dharam Khand disciplines only the outer life — eating, dressing, sitting, rising — Saram Khand shapes the inner instrument: surat, mat, man and buddhi. Wood shaped becomes furniture, gold shaped becomes ornament, iron shaped becomes machinery, unhewn stone can never be an idol; but shaping one's own mind is harder than all of these, and its beauty, Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji says, is beyond telling — whoever attempts to describe it will regret the attempt. He then gives the practical marks of a forged and an unforged mind. In a shaped mind, wrong impulses simply do not flow; in an unshaped mind, good thoughts run alongside bad ones and duality never rests. Quoting the Persian saint Hafiz — that seekers of God have drowned Him in the waves of the mind — he shows that a restless mind submerges peace, life and the Divine together. Since the whole of life stands on thought, and being Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jain, Buddhist or Sikh is itself a thought, a person's inner state can never stay hidden: speech inevitably reveals it. He reads this alongside the line that speaking on and on increases corruption, and yet explains why the bhagats and Gurus spoke and wrote so abundantly — sandalwood cannot withhold its fragrance and the sun cannot withhold its rays, and their speech was poured out so that others might be shaped by it. He closes on ਤਿਥੈ ਘੜੀਐ ਸੁਰਤਿ ਮਤਿ ਮਨਿ ਬੁਧਿ and ਤਿਥੈ ਘੜੀਐ ਸੁਰਾ ਸਿਧਾ ਕੀ ਸੁਧਿ. One whose mind is forged never gives a wrong verdict; wrong thinking is a sign that the mat is unshaped, wrong remembrance that the chit is unshaped, a wrong flood of impulses that the man is unshaped. The world looks disfigured, he says, not because creation is ugly but because it is a heap of unhewn stones. In that third stage the seeker receives the very understanding that gods and siddhas possess, and the resulting beauty is one before which every ornament is worthless — ਘਾੜਤਿ ਘੜੀਐ ਬਹੁਤੁ ਅਨੂਪੁ. Chapters: 0:00 The Pauri and the Map of Five Realms 1:42 Giaan Khand — Where Knowledge Blazes 2:25 Unstruck Sound and Countless Joys 4:02 Saram Khand Means Labour, Not Shame 6:09 A Shaping That Cannot Be Described 7:22 Forging Surat, Mat, Man and Buddhi 12:02 How a Forged Mind Differs from an Unforged One 13:16 Hafiz: God Drowned in the Waves of the Mind 15:54 Every Identity Is Only a Thought 17:57 Speech Always Reveals What Is Inside 20:17 Why the Saints and Bhagats Spoke So Much 23:40 The Forged Mind's Judgment and Real Beauty 27:20 The Understanding of Gods and Siddhas