If You’re a Keertani, You’re Not Doing Keertan

Once, there was a Gurmukh sitting in a hut, immersed in simran, immersed in naam for days on end. After a number of days, a sevak came and knocked on his door.

Gurmukh: “Kaun Haiga?” (Whos’ there?)

Sevak: Druaajaa Kholoo! Main haan!” (open the door! it’s me!)

The Gurmukh went back to his simran and ignored the knocker’s request. Seconds later, again:

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

Sevak: Druaajaa Kholo!!! Main Haan! (Please, open the door, it’s me!!)

Once again, the Gurmukh ignored him, and went back into samadhi, back into simran. A couple of minutes passed before…

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

Sevak: Oh Ho!! Druaajaa Kholo!! Main Haan!!!! (“Enough Already! Open the Door. It’s me!!)

Finally, the Gurmukh replied:

“Nei! Jey toon ‘main’ haan, tu nei andar aa sakda! Eithay rab vassdaa, eithay main vastay koi jagaa nein!”

(NO! If you’re “me”, you CANNOT enter this place! In this place is God, there’s no room for Me!!!)

————

A long time ago - maybe twenty years ago - it was mentioned in kids class that if you really hate someone… If you truly hate someone from the depths of your heart, and wanted to do something to ruin their lives…. you should tell them they do good keertan.

Nothing inflates a person’s ego more than telling them they do good keertan. And nothing will destroy a person’s spiritual path more than an inflated ego.

The moment you think of yourself as a keertani is the moment you’re descending into a spiritual downward spiral. Similarly to the saakhi above, once you deem yourself a keertan’i’, you’ve allowed “i” to come into the picture, and your entire spiritual path and purpose immediately gets jeopardized and threatened. Where there is “i”, there is no keertan, there is no naam, there is no shabad, and there is no Grace.

Ghaal Na Milio, Seyv Na Milio, Milio Aaey Achintaa

This is a difficult challenge. Guru Sahib may have glanced with his loving grace upon you to sing his baani endearingly and inspiringly. It’s a rare gift to be able to have a conversation with your Beloved through his Baani, and to be able to share that experience and amplify it with the help of the Saadh Sangat. The sangat may enjoy it, and in their misplaced actions of love, may come up to you and tell you what a good keertani you are. They will mean it lovingly, and if you haven’t done enough simran, enough bhagti, you will let it go to your head. You may place an increased sense of importance on yourself, and will focus more on “pleasing the sangat” than about conversing with your Beloved. Once you cross over into that pit, you are doomed. And then fighting out of that pit is extremely difficult. Trust me, I’m speaking from experience. And the worst part about it is that it will happen unconsciously, subconsciously, as a response to the love and blessings you receive from your sangis.

It was said to me once recently that if you sit down to do keertan with the intention that you want sangat to enjoy a shabad, and that you want sangat to connect with the shabad, you’re nothing more than a cheap musician. You could sit on the corner of a street and do the same thing. But if you sing keertan as an opportunity to converse with your Beloved, then you are actually thanking Guru Sahib for his great gift of singing keertan by singing his praises, by connecting with him, by generating and taking advantage of the energy of saadh sangat to help you connect. Then you’re His sevak, and He will be the only source of love and blessing you’ll ever depend on, listen to, and absorb. He will be all you need.

An interesting (and eye opening) paradox was shared with me once. If you listen to the tapes from the 1980’s and early 1990’s from samagams in Dodra and North America, the keertan was certainly not musically refined. The tabla players sound much less skilled than today’s, the vaaja playerssound much less agile than today’s. As it was said to me in Punjabi “Keertani ghatt see, Gurmukh Jyaaday See”. Bauji sent us on a Love-Path to transform our Aatmik Jeevan - our soul journeys - and to become Ik-Mik - imbibed - with our Beloved. Without completing the paradox, it is worth asking ourselves with honesty and reflection; are we simply becoming cheap musicians, or are we trying to be connected and imbibed with our Beloved?

So the challenge is two-fold.

1. Do not be affected by the ustat and the praises of the sangat. After all, you cannot control what other people do, you can only control how you react. So, you must build a Love-Fort against the well-intentioned, but possibly harmful praise you will get from sangis. They probably don’t mean any harm, but it may be harmful nevertheless. How do you build this fort?

2. Do not (Even accidentally!!) contribute to the ego of another person by telling them they do good keertan. Don’t do it in groups behind the person’s back. Don’t do it privately and quietly in your own mind. Don’t. Do. It. Period. Control that energy. Do not focus on the keertani. Focus on the Keertan. The keertani will die. The Shabad never will. Put your energy where it counts!