Raag Tilang

Tilang opens (with its own full Mool Mantar) as Guru Nanak brings a single prayer to a Cherisher named by mercy and purity (P0). The Pause line is a stark memento-mori — the end has us by the hair, yet we live as if we don't know it (P1). The dearest people cannot hold our hand at the last door (P2); Nanak confesses his own greed and lack of good deeds in the first person (P3); and the confession turns, ending not in self-hatred but in belonging — the dust of the feet of the One's lovers (P4).