There is only One, and that One is the bee and the flower, the speaker and the listener, the doorway we all walk through.
The Arc
Look around today and count what you see. The air you breathe. The water in your glass. The sun on your way to school, the moon on the way home. A bee on a flower. Day, then night. All of it is the One, and there is no other. The One is the board and every piece on it, the bow and the hand that pulls it, the voice that speaks and the ear that listens. Air is your teacher, water your father, the earth your mother. However your day goes, you can rest in that. You have nothing to hide from the One. At the centre, the opening line: there is one Truth, and no other.
Key Vocabulary
Aapay — You Yourself; the drumbeat word of this hymn, dissolving every wall between the One and creation
Anahad shabad — the unstruck sound, a quiet inner music said to resound in every heart
Nirankaar / Nirbhau — formless and fearless, echoing the Mool Mantar
Jot — the one light present in every being
Themes and Cross-Connections
The pauri of air, water, and earth is the famous closing salok of Japji, carried here into a longer meditation on divine immanence. The keynote is wonder: the One is not distant but is the very texture of the ordinary world. This sets the whole Solhe run in a bright key before it turns, in later hymns, to the cosmos and to mortality.
For Raag Maaroo
Maaroo is the raag of the battlefield and of death, and the Solhe are its dwelling place for cosmology and mortality. This first Solha opens in a bright key: the battle is inward, death is a doorway, and the vast cosmos is a home.
Hukumnama
Subject: There is one Truth, and no other Preview: air, water and fire, sun and moon, a bee on a flower, a chessboard, a bow and its archer.
Today: Look around today and count what you see. The air you breathe. The water in your glass. The sun on your way to school, the moon on the way home. A bee on a flower. Day, then night. All of it is the One, and there is no other. The One is the board and every piece on it, the bow and the hand that pulls it, the voice that speaks and the ear that listens. Air is your teacher, water your father, the earth your mother. However your day goes, you can rest in that. You have nothing to hide from the One.
There is one Truth, and it fills everything.
For today: Name three ordinary things today, like air, water and light, and thank the One for each.
There is only One, and that One is the bee and the flower, the speaker and the listener, the doorway we all walk through.
The Arc
Look around today and count what you see. The air you breathe. The water in your glass. The sun on your way to school, the moon on the way home. A bee on a flower. Day, then night. All of it is the One, and there is no other. The One is the board and every piece on it, the bow and the hand that pulls it, the voice that speaks and the ear that listens. Air is your teacher, water your father, the earth your mother. However your day goes, you can rest in that. You have nothing to hide from the One. At the centre, the opening line: there is one Truth, and no other.
Key Vocabulary
Themes and Cross-Connections
The pauri of air, water, and earth is the famous closing salok of Japji, carried here into a longer meditation on divine immanence. The keynote is wonder: the One is not distant but is the very texture of the ordinary world. This sets the whole Solhe run in a bright key before it turns, in later hymns, to the cosmos and to mortality.
For Raag Maaroo
Maaroo is the raag of the battlefield and of death, and the Solhe are its dwelling place for cosmology and mortality. This first Solha opens in a bright key: the battle is inward, death is a doorway, and the vast cosmos is a home.
Hukumnama
Subject: There is one Truth, and no other Preview: air, water and fire, sun and moon, a bee on a flower, a chessboard, a bow and its archer.
Today: Look around today and count what you see. The air you breathe. The water in your glass. The sun on your way to school, the moon on the way home. A bee on a flower. Day, then night. All of it is the One, and there is no other. The One is the board and every piece on it, the bow and the hand that pulls it, the voice that speaks and the ear that listens. Air is your teacher, water your father, the earth your mother. However your day goes, you can rest in that. You have nothing to hide from the One.
There is one Truth, and it fills everything.
For today: Name three ordinary things today, like air, water and light, and thank the One for each.