There are moments when something within begins to feel different, not in a dramatic way, but in how I move through life. The mind does not react as quickly. There is space to pause, to observe, and what once stayed with me begins to pass more easily. A quiet steadiness takes shape, and over time, without naming it directly, I began to recognize this as sahaj (a state of Divine love and awareness).
It did not feel like an idea. It felt lived. A state where the mind was less disturbed, where the fluctuations of life did not carry the same force, where there was an underlying ease in how I responded. I did not claim it, but I can see now that I had begun to believe something had settled in me in a lasting way.
What I did not see then was how quietly that belief had taken root.
Then something happened. It came through someone I believed knew me, and in that moment, something was said that did not land as I expected. It touched a place that felt deeply personal, not only because of what was said, but because of what it revealed. The response was immediate. The pain was sharp, but what stayed was something more difficult to hold: you don’t know me.
That did not pass with the moment. The mind returned to it again and again, sometimes quietly, sometimes with force, but always enough to keep it alive. I could see it happening. I could pause, even step back for a moment. But it did not stop.
And in that repetition, something became difficult to ignore.
Not just the pain of the moment, but what I could now see within it.
I could no longer hold on to the idea that I was in sahaj. If that were true, would this still move me in this way? Would the mind return like this, holding on, replaying, seeking to be understood? The question did not come as judgment. It came as clarity.
Something had shifted in me before, that much is true. But it had not taken root deeply enough. It could still be shaken. It could still give way when something touched the core. What I had experienced was not false, but it was not yet steady. It had not yet ripened.
That realization brings with it another layer that is harder to sit with. I had mistaken an early steadiness for something deeper. I had believed I was in a state I had not yet fully understood. This, too, was part of the illusion.
It is here that the eighteenth stanza in Anand Sahib begins to meet me differently.
“Deep knowledge does not arise through rituals; without deep knowledge, delusion does not go away.
Delusion does not go away through any discipline; people have grown weary of performing rituals.
Due to delusion, the mind is soiled. Through what effort can it be cleansed?
Attach to the Sabad, cleanse the mind. Keep your awareness aligned with the One.
Nanak says: Wisdom arises through the grace of the Guru. This is how delusion departs.” – Translation – GurugranthSahib.io
These lines no longer feel like they are speaking only about outward rituals. They begin to touch something far more subtle, the quiet reliance on doing. The belief that through awareness, through discipline, through effort, I will arrive at a place that cannot be disturbed. Even now, there is a part of me that wants to bring myself back to that steadiness, to return to where I thought I was. But that movement is not different. It comes from the same place.
The stanza does not give me a way to quiet the mind. It does not offer any suggestions for how I can bring myself back. If anything, it leaves me without that option. If the mind continues in this way, if it continues to hold what unsettles it, then it is showing me something I cannot ignore. Something still remains.
There is an irony here that is difficult to sit with. So much of what I have relied on has been built around awareness, around becoming more composed, more measured. And yet what I had understood as sahaj, the presence of the One within awareness, is not held in place by any of that. As long as I remain at the center, as the one trying to steady myself, something continues underneath. The surface may quieten, but it does not stay that way.
And in this state, these lines do not feel like guidance. They feel like something is exposing me.
When it asks, “Through what effort can the mind be cleansed?” I cannot answer it the way I used to because I can see the effort still at work within me. Even now, there is a part of me that wants to bring myself back. But that movement is not separate from what is happening. It comes from the same place.
The line that stays is simple, but it does not let me move past it: attach to the Sabad. Not as something to understand or hold on to, but as something to remain with when nothing else is settling. Not as a way to fix what is happening, but as something that stays when I cannot.
That is not where I fully am yet.
The replay is still there. The distance is not complete. I can see what is happening, but the heart does not follow that seeing. And this moment does not allow me to move away from that truth.
What it leaves me with is something more honest. Not that sahaj is absent, but that I am not yet steady in it. What I had touched was real, but it had not yet fully ripened.
And for now, that is what I can see, without softening it, without resolving it, and without calling it anything more than it is.
