Give yourself a beautiful song to sing || Acharya Prashant, on Nitnem Sahib (2019)

श्री भगवान भजे बिनु भूपतय, एक रात-ई बिनु एक न लेखई।

~ तव प्रसाद सवैए (नितनेम साहिब )

Without reciting the name of God, even though he be a King, any effort to meet Him leads to nowhere.

~ Tav-Prasad Savaiye (Nitnem Sahib)

Question: Acharya Ji, Pranaam! Nitnem praises the Supreme Lord, and Nanak Ji says that remembering God is important. I remember that you have also mentioned the importance of continuous remembrance of Truth.

For me, a stupid song or a catchy tune playing somewhere gets stuck in the brain, and loops for hours. I don’t even like the song necessarily. Some days I have gone to the bed with the tune in my head, and when I wake up the tune resumes again.

How do I make my brain loop with the Truth and the Supreme Lord twenty four into seven into three hundred sixty five?

Please guide me.

Acharya Prashant Ji: First of all, good. You are already closing in a bit. So what happens is that we hear something, it could be a catchy tune, or some issue, or somebody’s words, or whatever, and then it just starts going around in a circuit. As you said that it starts going around in a loop within.

And here are the Gurus telling you,

Without reciting the name of God, even though he be a King, any effort to meet Him leads to nowhere.

Guru Gobind Sahib is advising you that you must continuously recite the name of God. And instead of the name of God, what is it in circulation within? Some random tune, some miscellaneous issue, some incidental word, some common song.

And you are asking, “How do I make my brain loop on the Truth and the Supreme Lord continuously, twenty-four into seven into three sixty-five?” I like this – twenty-four into seven into three-sixty-five. It’s simple. In fact your question contains the answer.

The mind has a tendency to zero in upon something. The mind is hungry to get something. It wants something to be with, something nice to be with. If it gets a filmy song, or a filmy tune, it latches on irrespective of the quality of the tune, irrespective of the content of the lyrics of the song. The mind just gropes. It doesn’t matter what the lyrics are saying, it doesn’t matter where the tune is coming from, it hardly matters. Or even if it matters, it matters to only some extent.

The mind is so hungry, so desperate that it clutches. What does that tell you about the mind? That the mind really needs something to be with, something musical to be with, something nice to be with. So the solution is obvious – give the mind something greatly musical, greatly wonderful to be with.

Because the solution is so simple, therefore the punishment that you get on not following such a simple solution is great. Yesterday many of you celebrated Holi singing Kabir Sahib and Baba Bulle Shah.

What else is that arrangement for?

You need something to sing, you need something to keep continuously uttering. And if you must sing something of Holi, why not sing something of Bulle Shah? Because if you will not sing the words coming from Bulle Shah, you would sing, and remember, and recite, and repeat in a loop the words that are being burped out from the radio stations.

I am pretty sure that the entire day yesterday, the FM channels would have been serving you Holi songs in a loop. If you do not have what Kabir Sahib served you yesterday, your punishment would be that you would have fallen an easy prey to what the radio stations were serving you today. And that is your solution.

The solution is so easy.

What did you sing yesterday? Sing the Bulle Shah song aloud that you sang yesterday.

(The audience singing the song aloud during the Satsang).

Koi rang kaala, koi peela, koi laal gulaabi karda

(Some colour it with black, some colour it with yellow, some colour it with red). Bulle Shah rung murshid waala kisii kisii nu chadda

(Rare is the one who colours it with the colour of the Guru)

The ego wants to sing, it’s your responsibility to give it a befitting and beautiful song. If you will not give it beautiful song, then it will just sing some crude, crass composition. But sing it will. It depends on you, how the song of the ego sounds.

A song would be there. It could be either this, or something else. You know of all those songs that the FM stations were dishing out today.

It could either be “murshid wala rang” ( a song by Baba Bulleh Shah), or *“balam pichkari.*“(a Bollywood song). If you don’t have “murshid wala rang” , then “balam pichkari” is your fate. And I must warn you that “balam pichkari” is contagious, it is an infectious disease. It catches on more readily than Bulleh Shah.

Reason – “balam pichkari” is designed to be infectious. It is like a software virus. It is designed to go viral. Bulle Shah’s words are not designed to be infectious, or viral, or catchy.

Are you getting the difference?

Those tunes, they are carefully, in a very evil way constructed to pollute. That’s there in their very design. If you do not have Kabir Sahib with you, if you do not have Bulle Shah with you, you are a sitting duck, you are an easy target. You are gone. “Balam pichkari” would kidnap you very-very easily.

Are you getting it?

Goudhaman (the questioner) , do I need to say more on the solution?

And that would also tell you why there is an attraction, and why there is a resistance. When the FM stations dish out that music, it is obviously attractive. Is it not? You don’t have to train yourself to get attracted, you just get attracted.

Even the little ones get attracted, because that music is designed keeping the weaknesses of the mind, in mind. So even the little ones will start humming, and jumping. But when it comes to Bull Shah or Kabir Sahib, there you need to have some discipline, and therefore there would be resistance.

You would not feel like learning that art, you would not feel like putting in the effort to develop that music. You would feel like bypassing it or resisting it. “What is the need? The FM station is anyway there you know. If all we need is a Holi song, then there are so many already there.”

(Acharya Ji quoting lines from another Bollywood song popularly sung on the occasion of Holi).

“Launga elaichi ka beeda lagayaa. Launga elaichi ka.” Why Bulleh Shah? You already have a great song ready. “Launga elaichi ka beeda lagayaa. Gaave gori ka yaar balam tarse rand barse.”

This song is your punishment if you do not have the songs of Mystics in your life. This is not entertainment, it is your punishment. Your punishment is that, even on the sacred day of Holi, all that you will know is “balam pichkari” . Your mind, your consciousness will remain only at these lowly levels.

Even the festival of Holi would fail in giving you something high, something evolved. Even on the day of the great festival there would be no greatness in your life. You would still be singing the same, old “balam pichkari” .

But we are so used to punishments, that even punishments go unnoticed, that we even start calling the punishment as ‘entertainment’.

Getting it?

Be with the Saints. Except for the right company there is no solution.

And if you are with the Saints, they will sing. O! The Saints sing so beautifully. And when they will sing, you will have a lot of songs to sing. And then they will loop in your mind.

But for those songs to come to you, you must be with the progenitor of the songs. Where do the songs come from? They come from the Saints. Be with the Saints, you are gifted with their songs.

If you have no love for Kabir, why would you ever go to a place where Kabir Sahib is being sung? First of all you need some Love for Kabir Sahib.

Be with the Saints, be gifted with their songs.

Right?

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