The paathi sings the Bani of Sant Paltu Sahib from the book: Paltu Sahib, Part II, pg 32
Jaha tanik jal bichudai chod deth hai praan.
Jaha tanik jal bichudai chod deth hai praan.
THIS IS THE BANI of Param Sant Satguru Paltu Sahib. In this Bani, Paltu Sahib has talked about love. He has talked about how the love of a gurumukh disciple is in the Feet of the Master. Love and devotion is not something to be talked about and explained, it is something that is reflected in behavior. It is reflected in the eyes and in the overall behavior.
There is only one love, and it is for us to decide where to focus that love. Either we can take that love and have love in the Feet of the Master, or we can shift that love into the worldly affections and outward desires. And we can then try to fulfill those outward desires, or seek to go within and focus that love at the Feet of the Master. We cannot have two loves, love for the outside world also, and love for the Master at the same time, because then we do not get success, and our time gets wasted.
But Mahatmas and Saints also explain to us that we should do the love and devotion of the Masters while we stay within our homes, and do our duties outside. And, when Saints say that, then the question arises in our mind that if the Saints are telling us to be in our families and go outside, do our duties and work, then our love is getting divided in our family, work, etc., and how can we have that love at the Feet of the Master?
Nanak Sahib says, “The love to our Masters should be like the lotus.” The lotus, though it grows in swamps and it is surrounded by mud and water, it always stays afloat above the water. So, even if the level of water increases, the lotus also goes up, and it doesn't get soiled in that mud and water. Even if we put the lotus inside the water, and we see that lotus has grown in the water, and it has survived in that water, we see that no water stays on its petals and its leaves. The water just rolls off its petals and its leaves.
So, that way, we can stay in our families, do our duties and go about our normal livelihood, but in our mind, we should stay focused in the love and devotion of the Masters.
He gives another example of a bird, which preys on fish in water. And this bird, it flies and then it enters the water to catch its fish, and then, again, catches the fish, and then flies away with dry wings. Like that bird, the bird stays in that water. It sits in the water. It swims in the water. It enters inside the water, but it always flies away with dry wings.
Like that, we should go about our duties, and with our relationships, stay aloof in the mind in our devotion at the Feet of the Master. We should live in this world knowing that it is not permanent. It is not that we are going to stay here permanently. It is to be left in a few days. Our True Home is the Home of God Almighty, and we have to go there. We are only merely visitors here.
So, that way, we should go about our duties and, day and night, we should be focused in our mind at the Feet of the Master. If we stay like this, then the Master helps us spiritually, and he also helps us in our daily duties.
So, in this Bani, Paltu Sahib has given a beautiful example of how a fish loves its water. When it is taken outside of that water, it is willing to give up its life, but it will not leave that water. That way, the disciple should have love for his Master and for Naam. And even if his attention gets away from Naam or his Master for a second, he should feel as if fifty years have passed. And that is how he should stay attached to Naam and his Master.
Chod deth hai praan jaha jal se bilgaavai,
Chod deth hai praan jaha jal se bilgaavai;
Deyi dhoodh me dari rahein na praan gavaave.
Paltu Sahib says, “Even if you take out the fish from water, and put it in milk also. (Milk is like nectar to a lot of people, so it is considered better than water.) So, if you take the fish out of water and put it in milk also, it doesn't accept that. It wants to go back into that water only.” That fish then wants to go back to water. So, it completely associates itself, and has undivided love, with being in water. Even if it is taken out for a few seconds, it is willing to give up its life for that.
That way, for a devotee, who is constantly in touch with Naam and his Master, when he forgets for a few minutes also, he should feel the loss of that much time that he is not been able to stay attentive or have his attention on Naam and his Master. So, such a devotee will always be successful.
The Master, when He gives the initiation, He sits within. And that is the closest of close relationships that we have. And the Master sees that. The Master never dies.
Ajaib Singh Ji used to say, “If someone says that ‘my master is dead’ then make him stand in a court and ask him why he followed a master who was going to die.” So, if a Master is, Himself, going to die, how is He going to liberate His devotee? The souls of the Masters are immortal. Their souls are immortal. It is the body that They have to shed off.
Therefore, we should not carry any worries, or carry any doubts or any misgivings in this matter. The Masters Who have given you initiation, They are always with you. Have no doubt in your mind about it.
Jaa ko vahi ahaar tahi ko kaa lai deeje,
Jaa ko vahi ahaar tahi ko kaa lai deeje.
Rahai na koti upay aur sukh naana keejai.
Paltu Sahib says, “The support of the fish is the water. And if you take that out of water, whatever you give the fish, which is better or otherwise, it doesn't accept that. It wants that water only.” If it is taken out of water, it suffers and it dies.
The devotee also should have that much feeling of suffering when he, for an instant, or a few minutes also, gets away from the attention of Naam and his Master. When a disciple, a devotee, gets this kind of love and affection, then his spiritual Path becomes very easy, because when he loves and he focuses his attention within, then his karmas are redeemed very fast, and the Master is ever so gracious. And, therefore, his Path inside becomes very easy, and the Master opens the door for him to come inside.
If our mind is scattered outside in all our desires, but we are still doing our Simran and we are devoted, we will definitely get the benefit of that. But the success of going within, that will take time.
Yeh leejai drustanth sakai so leyi vichaari,
Yeh leejai drustanth sakai so leyi vichaari;
Aiso karai saneh taahi ki main balihaari.
Paltu Sahib says, “A devotee who loves his Master and who loves his Naam like this, I bow to the feet of that devotee.” Gurumukh shishyas, the Saints Who are Gurumukhs, and devotees who are gurumukhs, They have sacrificed a lot of things in Their lives, and They are forever focused within at the Feet of their Master and in Naam. And, for Them, Their Path has become very easy, and the Grace of the Master is always there with Them.
Paltu aisee preeti karu jal aur meen samaan,
Paltu aisee preeti karu jal aur meen samaan;
Jaha tanik jal bichudai chod deth hei praan.
Paltu Sahib says, “You should have love for your Master like the love the fish has for the water. And, if you have such love, then the success is not far away.”
Sant Mat is a Path of love and this love is not grown in the fields. This love cannot be purchased in the market. And anyone, big or small, a king or a common man, if he wants to have this love, then he has to sacrifice his ego. So, to get this love he has to ‘give his head’. And, as for ‘giving one’s head’, Saints refer to this as giving one’s ego away and sacrificing the ego. It is this ego that brings the person back into the cycle of life and death.
Paltu aisee preeti karu jal aur meen samaan,
Paltu aisee preeti karu jal aur meen samaan;
Jaha tanik jal bichudai chod deth hei praan.
Jo mein haarou raam ki jo jaathou thau raam,
Jo mein haarou raam ki jo jaathou thau raam.
Paltu Sahib says, in the following stanza, in the following Bani, “You should play the gamble of love with your Master. And, in this gamble, if you lose, then you become the Master’s. And if you win, the Master becomes yours.” So, both ways, we win. If we lose, then we get the Grace of the Master. And if we win, we make the Master ours. Then, the Master sits with all of His Grace inside us.
Jo jeetho tho raam ram se tan man lavai,
Jo jeetho tho raam ram se tan man lavai;
Khelou aise khel lokh ki laaj bahaavou.
So, he says, you play this gamble of love with your Master. And while you play this game, you keep aside all your status, your society, and your ego, which prevents you from coming into this.
Likewise, Mira Bai, when she fell in love with her Master, she was from a very high society. But she went into the company of Masters and Saints, and she gave away the ego of her society.
Caste and religion also are a big impediment in coming on the Path. And we should always be on this Path with a lot of humility and leave away all our aspirations, and our caste, and our religion.
Paasaa pehko gyan naarad biswaas chalavau;
Paasaa pehko gyan naarad biswaas chalavau;
Chourasi ghar firai adi paubaarah naavo.
Paltu Sahib says, “How do you play this gamble of love? You throw the dice of faith. You throw the card of faith in this gamble. And you put the stake of love in this game. That way, you play this gamble of love. And, that way, you will become of the Master, and the Master will become of you.” So, once we surrender to the Master, then the Master looks after everything.
Paubaarah sikhaay ek ghar bheethar rakhau,
Paubaarah sikhaay ek ghar bheethar rakhau;
Paltu bhaajee laaihau dovu bidhee se raam.
Arjan Dev Ji gives an example of Lord Ravana. Lord Ravana, to please his deity Shiva, his god Shiva, he sacrificed his head, his physical head, ten times. He says even though he had sacrificed it nine times, Shiva had not been pleased. So, it was only on the tenth sacrifice that Shiva got pleased.
Ravana had this nectar, which he had got in an earlier boon, and he had kept it in his stomach, and because of that, he was immortal. So, every time he would offer his head, he would cut his head and offer it to Lord Shiva, that head would regrow, and again, he would cut it. So, like that, he cut it ten times, and only on the tenth time that he cut it, Lord Shiva got pleased. So, it was only after Ravana had cut his head off ten times that he was able to please Shiva.
What Arjan Dev Ji was trying to say was that, if love could have been purchased outside, Ravana would have purchased it outside. But this love was only available after he had to cut his head ten times and paid the price of it.
So, Saints say that you go about your duties, stay in your families, but the main love that is there, that we have, it is one single love that we have. That love, we keep at the Feet of the Masters, and we follow that with love and devotion.
Paltu bhaajee laaihau dovu bidhee se raam.
Paltu bhaajee laaihau dovu bidhee se raam.
Jo mein haarou raam ki jo jaathou thau raam.
Paltu Sahib says, “If you are playing and you are gambling, then gamble with love like this. You gamble with your Master. You gamble love with your Master, or you gamble love with God Almighty. And in this game, even if you lose, you are becoming His, and even if you win, He is becoming yours. So, in both the situations, whether you win or you lose, both ways, you are gaining.”
Guru Nanak Ji, when he had the pangs of separation and he had this love for his Master, he suffered this pang of separation. Then, for almost six months, he was bedridden. He was kind of bedridden where the only thing that he was focusing was his attention within at the Feet of his Master. And he had no interest in anything outside. As a result, his family members, his parents, started feeling that he is unwell. He is sick. He is not paying attention to outside family work. He is not paying attention in his duties. He's neither eating properly, and he is unwell. They showed him to several doctors, and they tried to give him medicine to cure him. But he had this strong pang of separation within for the love of his Master. And that is what had caused him this six-month period of complete loss to the outside world.
So, one day, Nanak Ji told the doctor, who had come to see him, “You are giving me medicine for a cough, you are giving me medicine for some acidity, or some other such ailment, and you are not aware of the pain that I'm going through. The pain is not the physical pain. It is the pain in my heart for the love of my Master. So, if you have some medicine that you can give me where I can get connected faster to my God Almighty, then give me that medicine. Otherwise, please pack your bag and go.”
His parents were unable to understand this. And they were annoyed at the way he was treating the physicians. They felt that he is talking like this to the physicians and insulting them. So, they then asked him to leave the house.
He had become very weak during this period. He had become skeleton-like, with muscles that deteriorated, and his skin had become dry, and he was just left as a bony structure. And when he was taken out of his house, he somehow managed to walk, sometimes falling, and he somehow managed to go to his sister's place. She was aware of his pangs of separation with God Almighty and his Master and she nursed him back to good health. And when, finally, He got to Sach Khand-Sat Lok within, He became healthy, and then, He became a True Saint, and He started His preaching after that.
When, in this kind of a pang of separation, where the soul is connected to the Sound Current within, and outwardly it is not eating food, or it is off its normal meals, the body will not die in a situation like this. Because the Sound Current, which is there resonating within, that is providing for that body to continue. And then, it is up to the Will of the Saints, how They want Their body thereafter.
So, this pang of separation happens when the soul reaches the Par Brahm, and from there, till it reaches Sach Khand, this pang of separation is there in that soul.
Paltu bhaajee laaihau dovu bidhee se raam.
Paltu bhaajee laaihau dovu bidhee se raam.
Jo mein haarou raam ki jo jaathou thau raam.
Lagan muhurath jhoot sab aur bigaade kaam.
Lagan muhurath jhoot sab aur bigaade kaam.
Paltu Sahib further says, on a worldly note, He talks about how, when we have something auspicious, when we have an opening, or laying down a foundation of a building, or we have a ceremony, or we have a marriage or something like that, we often call in the priests, and the priests pick out a good time and date for that. And though this practice is now less prevalent in bigger cities, it is still very prevalent in villages and in the rural India.
So, Paltu Sahib says, “All this thing about picking out an auspicious date and time, and all of this work that we do by calling priests, all this is all false. And it is all a waste of time. It wastes your time and your devotion to God Almighty.”
Once a person is initiated by the Masters, the Masters take his full account from the Lord of Judgment. He has nothing further to do with the Lord of Judgment and with all the gods and goddesses. So, everything that is written in Scriptures about how a person should look for an auspicious time, conduct himself, or it is a good time to please all of those gods and everything, all that becomes completely irrelevant because the account is with the Master. So, the Way and Path shown by the Master and His direction is what should be followed. Everything else is a waste of time.
These also, the priests and pundits who are there, they are also doing all of this to just earn their livelihood. They seldom know the truth in those Scriptures, and the reality, and the process that it should be done with. Very, very few and far between people or priests know exactly the Scriptures and what is to be done. Most of the people don't have a clue about what it is. They just read something, and they explain in a puja while they are doing this, and we are just wasting our time with them.
You put it in the opposite direction. You change the door.” All these things are also completely irrelevant.
So, for a satsangi the department of accounts has changed. The department of accounts has been removed from the Lord of Judgment to the Master. And all the Scriptures and all the explanations that they do, and all the practices that they are asking people to follow, relate to gods and goddesses who no longer have any relevance for a satsangi because his whole and sole concern is the Master.
Aur bigaade kaam saayith jani sodhai koi,
Aur bigaade kaam saayith jani sodhai koi;
Ek barosaa naahi kusal kahvaa se hoyee.
Paltu Sahib says, “If all these things waste our time, and the only thing that is required is the faith in the God Almighty, and if we don't have that faith, then nothing is going to be done.”
In the north, there was a person called Jalhan Bhakt. And he was a gurumukh shishya. He was a gurumukh satsangi and was initiated by a Saint. And he did not have any faith in these rituals and all of these processes.
Now, his daughter had come of marriageable age. And his wife, however, was insisting that they should look for a proper time. So, his wife would keep insisting to him to go to the priest and look out for a good, auspicious time and, though he did not believe in any of this, he felt, “She is insisting every day. And rather than listening to that bickering every time, I will listen to her once and I will go to that priest.” So, he decided to go there.
His house was on one side of the village, and the priest’s house was on the other side of the village. So, when he went to meet the priest, when he was passing the village in-between, he saw that a boy had been bitten by a snake and he had died. And several people had come and done various kinds of these rituals and practices. But they had not been able to get that boy revived.
So, when Jalhan Bhakt saw this, he wondered whether anything could be done for the boy. But then, the villagers said, “Nothing can be done. We tried everything, but it is his destiny to die. So, he is dead as a result.”
When he went to the priest’s house, the priest had gone outside somewhere, and the priest’s daughter, who had got married about six months earlier, had become a widow. She was staying in his house and she opened the door for him. So, when he reached this lady, she was wearing white clothes and she was in that house. In India, when there are widows, they wear white clothes. So, he noticed that she had worn white clothes, and he inquired what happened to her. And they, the other family members, told him, "She has recently got widowed. She had got married about six months back, and her husband died, due to some illness. And, as a result, she, unfortunately, has become a widow."
So, he asked those people, “Since she is his daughter, didn't that priest pick a proper, auspicious time, which would avoid all of this?”
They said, “No, that is destiny. So, that is fate and that is what has happened. You cannot change your fate.”
And then, he remembered the earlier incident, where that boy had died due to a snakebite. And that boy was the son of a doctor of a vaid, an Ayurvedic vaid. And he had asked that doctor also earlier, “Try your medicines on your son.”
But he had said, “Nothing will work. It's destined for him to die.”
So, when he saw both these incidents happen with him, he said, “I have seen the son of a doctor die, and I've seen this daughter of a priest becoming a widow and, whatever is destined, has to happen. So, why bother to look, whether it is a good time or a bad time, or to see the good or the bad of it?”
So, he went back and he got his daughter married.
Basically, if we see all of the people seated here, where do these people go and get priests and look for an auspicious time? They marry in churches and they live happily. And birds also marry, they stay and they have young ones, they are happy. So, animals, birds, all of that, they don't search for priests. So, it is only that we have this system of looking for priests, auspicious times, and all that.
So, Paltu Sahib says, “Leave all this business about looking for an auspicious time, priests, and all of this, and just focus your attention and your love and devotion at the Feet of the Master.”
Jekare hathai kusal thahi ko diyaa bisaari,
Jekare hathai kusal thahi ko diyaa bisaari;
Aapan ik chaturayee beech mein karein anaari.
He says, “The support that you have from God Almighty, you have left that. But you are following your intellect and you’re trying to use your mind to do all your actions.” So, He says, “If you have faith in your Master and God Almighty, then whatever time you see, whatever thing you're doing, only that is truly auspicious.”
Tinka tootein naahi bina satguru ki daya,
Tinka tootein naahi bina satguru ki daya;
Ajahu cheth gavaar jagath hai jhooti kaaya.
He says, “Everything is within the Will of the Master and God Almighty. Even a leaf will not break without the Will of the Masters and God Almighty.” So, He says, “Therefore, that is the Reality, and if They want, and They grace a person, then nobody can even pick a hair on that person.”
So, the devotee should have his love and have his devotion and faith in his Master and in God Almighty. And he should forget about all of these outside things. Our impediment is our intellect and our intelligence, which takes us outward. And, if we have the faith in the Master and God Almighty, then He will come. He will take us inside, and He will take us up to our God Almighty also.
Paltu subh din subh ghadi yaadh padein jab naam,
Paltu subh din subh ghadi yaadh padein jab naam;
Lagan muhurath jhoot sab aur bigaade kaam.
Paltu Sahib says, “The only auspicious time that you have is the time that you remember your Master and God Almighty. That is the only auspicious time.” And it is this auspicious time that we are spending in remembrance of Naam, of our Master, and God Almighty. We are building this accumulation of auspicious time, this bank balance that we are creating, this wealth that we are creating at this time, which we are spending in His remembrance. It is only this wealth that will stay with us and will go with us after our death. Everything else will remain here.
Paltu subh din subh ghadi yaadh padein jab naam,
Paltu subh din subh ghadi yaadh padein jab naam;
Lagan muhurath jhoot sab aur bigaade kaam.
Radhaswami.