Indian Classical Music And Sikh Kirtan by Gobind Singh Mansukhani (M.A., LL.B, Ph.D.) © 1982 State if Equipose (Sahaj) |
| State if Equipose (Sahaj) Kirtan is a natural way of expressing love for Divinity. When the mind is full of devotion, it bursts into the song of the Lord. Gurbani is the path of sahaj-natural, simple but hopeful way of spirituality. According to Guru Amardas, God’s love naturally and inevitably leads to detachment and desirelessness, not in the way of renunciation, but in an attitude of non-attachment to material things. By and by, Kirtan produces a state of getting closer to God by constant remembrance and imbibing some of His qualities [41]. This is a gradual but maturing process, like the ripening of the fruit on the tree. Sacred music enables one to reach this stage of peace and equipose. The mind becomes calm and relieved; it realises that the source of peace is not something external, but within one’s own consciousness. The mind gets stable and stays within its own ‘home’. It tastes the joy evoked by divine aspiration. Guru Nanak says that the devotee, while engrossed in the contemplation of the Glory of God, unconsciously realises his own identity with the Lord, and ‘singing his praises, he imperceptively unites with the object of his glorification’. |