Transferring the Sacred Word from Mother to Daughter
by Snatam Kaur
Snatam Kaur and Prabhu Nam Kaur on stage at the Sacred Chant Retreat
Somebody asked me once what it is like hearing my mother sing. I told them her voice brings me great peace. Yet as I spoke these words, I was thinking, ‘when I hear her sing it is like hearing my own voice.’ How can you explain something like that? In the womb, she sang to me, and throughout my child hood she sang to me. When I hear her sing, it takes as much effort as it takes to look at the palm of my hand for me to sink deeply into a state of bliss. I can’t remember the first time I heard her sing a Shabad that I fell in love with as it is interwoven into my very existence. I will just have to do my best to give you images and feelings, because that is all that I have- that is what my mother gave to me.
If you have ever seen my mother sing, it is like watching someone who is absolutely and deeply in love. She practices by herself sometimes for hours. I know these practices well. Her voice gently dances through the space around her, reverberating off of the bedroom walls and echoing into the living room, bathroom, the whole house, and floating out the windows. The Shabad Guru1 became a part of the house, a part of us, so familiar that you almost don’t realize that she is singing because the whole house is singing. She loved when I would come and sing with her. I can remember her sweet smiles and tilting gaze, asking me to come and play with her. In a day dream of teenage years, I would often have so many other things to do. It’s funny to think back because now there is nothing more wonderful to me then singing kirtan2 with my mother. But my refusals gave me a wonderful lesson when she sang anyway without me! Her absolute ecstatic experiences of bliss went on, and on, and on. Every evening, she became a part of my home and experience.
Over time, it just seeped into me until it was me. I felt a deep longing to merge with the Infinite. It seemed like a great idea to sit down and sing for hours in our Gurdwara3, which is not really a typical thought for a teenager. I would go there and be with my Guru. I never really thought about it. No one ever told me it was a good idea - it was just a pure longing within me. It came from my environments and the experience and example that my mother gave without any direct conversation. I learned that the definition of beauty was playing a Shabad where you could feel it in your heart. The definition of ultimate confidence and character was singing a Shabad and knowing what it meant to me. It was never that I had to understand every word, it was that I wanted to understand what the Shabad I had chosen at that time was teaching me, what it was giving to me in my life, why it had appeared. My mother and I would have long conversations on many occasions about the meanings of Shabads and why one had entered into our lives. People must understand that the Shabad Guru is a living breathing entity. It comes into your life and blesses you with gifts. It is the living Guru singing through you, being with you, understanding your deepest needs and desires, watching you grow up and grow old. The Shabad Guru is eternal and will be here when our physical bodies are gone. This is how we can be a part of the Infinite flow of life.
My mother keeps all of her Shabads in this wonderful notebook. It is such a blessing. Sometimes I just look through it in absolute amazement and look at page after page that she has poured her soul over. Little notes and numbers fill the pages encasing each page in a timeless effort to record history. Every little tune she has ever learned is recorded, note by note. Every word is translated. You can’t even imagine the feeling I have when looking at these pages. She will take one Gurumukhi word and write down all of the potential meanings, depending on the context, mood or feeling. She explained to me once that Gurumukhi is a poet’s language. You have to understand it in the same way that you look at a picture. It gives you images, feelings, and sensations that are individual to each person. You can never take the words and make one meaning that will work for every person. Gurumukhi works in such a way that it sinks into every heart the way that it can be understood in each individual heart, Antarjaami.
Mother's Blessing was the first produced collaboration between Prabhu Nam Kaur and Snatam Kaur
Even if you just take one word and learn its meaning, then every time you come to it in a Shabad, it will deepen your experience. My mother taught me to learn meanings, and feel them in my heart as I was singing them. When you sing with understanding, people will feel it, even if they don’t know what they are feeling. We are all intelligent beings, conduits for God’s light. When we sing Kirtan with understanding, even if it is just one word, we transfer this to everyone because it becomes our experience. When I teach people Shabads and Mantras, I always tell people it is not a performance. It is an experience of service to the Creator or Guru4. Your relationship is with the Creator first. When anyone hears the Shabad Guru , it is their blessing to be with the Guru. I am there to share an experience of the Guru, and you must also. Then I tease people about trying to be perfect and worrying about making a mistake. You are serving, you are serving, you are serving, I tell them. What a beautiful thing to do. It’s not about you anyway, you could be a picture on the wall. People will come, people will go, people will listen, people won’t listen. You are in the Guru’s court, serving the Guru. Allow people to come and be in the presence of the Guru and be healed as it is their path to be healed. Sing the Guru’s praises, and give people an opportunity to connect and then let them be with the Guru, let you be with the Guru.
What is Shabad Guru? It is true love, it is hope, it is the Soul’s path, it is a mother’s legacy, and a daughter’s destiny. First and foremost, Shabad Guru is real, it is with us, it is our gift. God has blessed us on this path. Sat Nam.
- Snatam Kaur
[It was a blessing to find this article Snatam Kaur wrote a few years ago about her mother, Prabhu Nam Kaur, especially with the upcoming release of Prabhu Nam Kaur's album, Seasons of the Soul, on which Snatam Kaur joins her. - Karan]
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1. The Shabad Guru: The Shabad Guru is the entire collective words of the Guru. A Shabad is a song composed from the Sikh holy book. The word Shabad probably best translates as the 'word of the divine.'
2. Kirtan: Kirtan is the group chanting and singing done in devotion.
3. Gurudwara: A gurudwara is a Sikh temple.
4. Guru: Guru is the Divine Teacher. The word Guru translates as the one who takes you from darkness to light.
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Thank you so much for this beautiful article. Singing with my mother was one of the greatest gifts of my life. I hear her voice in mine. Especially since she’s crossed over. Your article brought back that sweet feeling of love, of comfort, of bliss. Thank you. Sat Nam!
Whilst I don’t remember my mother singing (she probably did when I in her womb and when I was a baby), but I did hear her reading the various “paath” and the Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji, and doing Aardas when she will mention all of our names for Waheguruji’s blessing. Yes, I can definitely relate my mum to your beautiful article, and yes, beautiful is the word that first came out on my lips while reading it. Thank you. Jasz.
This article has aroused tender feelings of my early Childhood when my mother used to chant Gurbani & sing shabads to us , it has been more than 30 yrs but still the thought of it is soothing to the soul. Beautiful article!!.