Saint Kabeer comments:
He leaves the womb, and comes into the world;
As soon as the air touches him, he forgets his Lord and Master.
There appears to be some elements in the very environment that makes us forget our true origin. As time passes, the transient reality assumes a permanent meaning.
In between, we sometimes pause, and some thoughts do enter, pointing out our folly. We see the reality of death around us, and try to understand it. Alas, the dead cannot tell us:
Death is like the music contained in the instrument;
how can anyone know the secret of the dead?
Faced with the finality of the end, and the absence of answers, there are frantic attempts at doing “good” deeds, and then go to heaven as reward:
Do not know where heaven is,
But we plan to go there!
He claims to know the Lord, who is beyond measure and beyond thought;
by mere words, he plans to enter heaven!
Guru Granth defies conventional wisdom, and questions the validity of such deeds:
Sin and virtue are both the same.
In the home of your own being, is the Philosopher’s Stone;
Renounce your search for any other virtue.
And as long as the search for heaven continues, it shall remain elusive:
As long as the mind is filled with the desire for heaven,
he does not dwell at the Lord’s Feet.
Because shorn of pretensions, a desire for heaven is nothing but just a desire. As long there are desires, even for an imagined heaven of great luxury, the duality will remain, and the soul remains captive in a self-created delusion.
By mere deeds and talk, the mind is not appeased.
The mind is at rest, only when egotism is conquered.