_{The original bhajan or hymn is in Gujarati.}

O my companion, saheli (female friend)!

1. I am married to The Eternal Husband (Krishna). I am now married to The Indivisible Husband.
2. After having gone through eighty four lakhs (8.4 million) birth and death cycles, I have suffered a great deal in this ocean of samsar (worldly life).
3. The Worldly Life and the samsari relatives are all terribly deceptive and seeing and repeatedly experiencing this I am shivering (shocked).
4. The entire family and those associated with them (relatives and friends) are all selfish and now (after marrying the Lord) I am relieved (free) from this deceptive world.
5. After taking this birth, I have suffered immeasurably having lived a married worldly life and establishing a household.
6. But now I am very joyous (happy) in the company of saints and feel at peace having established in a single goal (to stay married with the Lord and unmarried with the worldly) in this life without doubts or confusion.
7. I have overcome the worldly thirst (for lust and greed) due to infinite grace of Truth, Shri Krishna and the Sadguru within.
8. Gopi Mira's Lord is Giridhar (who raised the mountain to save his devotees in Vrindavan). He is the true civilized, dependable, pure, selfless friend and husband.  I now surrender at the feet of saints.

Commentary:

In a bhajan, the message in the first line is usually the most important and decisive. When singing, it is repeated after each subsequent line. Each line contains a specific message, instruction or teaching. We also note the need for Abhyasayoga, which implies repetitive attention to our goal. Here the key is for a person (man or woman) to marry the Lord, and the conclusive line indicates the means to our goal. To surrender to the lovers of Truth (saints), to seek only their company and guidance, is the highest wisdom.

We can note the summary of the divine song, the Shreemad Bhagavad Gita, here in eight lines in which Mirabai has expressed her lifetime of spiritual experience. We may remember the advice of  saints that it is the message and its immediate practice that is key to removing the worldly disease of lust, greed, desire for name and fame, anger, jealousy, pride, arrogance, vanity and self-love ,only to mention a few.

The first line states that Mirabai (Atman) is married to the Indivisible Lord, the Paramatman (Gita 2:11-25) or Brahman and none lower than the Ultimate Unity. The Lord is beyond name and form or denominations.

The second line tells us the reality and the experiences of all of us who have suffered so much in this and in previous lives. Only a fool can see happiness because the seeds of miseries are hidden in the apparent happiness of the delusive world of duality, where birth and death are inevitable.

The third message is that the samsar, or the worldly life, cause despondency, mental agony, frustration, depression and delusion (Gita 1:28-47). The mirage soon teaches us, if we are wise, that there is no water in it to quench our thirst. Our thirst by nature is the Atman's, that is to experience eternal joy, which is ours only in Unity with the entire universe. The universe is the manifestation of That One Lord, the Creator of the entire creation.

The fourth line vividly tells us that there is no real relative or friend of ours in this world since the all relationships in this world (samsar) are based upon selfishness, even in a newborn child just born not to speak of the grown ups. Having stated that all are selfish, one must try to get out of this situation. Let us go beyond selfishness (Gita 3:9-16).

The fifth line tells us that birth is nothing but suffering for the mother, child and the father, only if these fools can recognize this wisdom. At birth the pain of the mother and the crying child is obvious, and who can laugh at death except saints? Between two crying events only fools can laugh. We normally laugh when we should be crying and cry when we should be laughing (Gita 2:69). Ignorance covers our intellect and our ability to see the reality. A fool cannot be easily convinced or converted into wisdom (Gita 6:35-36).

The sixth line relieves us of the hopeless situation we end up in because of a momentary desire to fulfill our lust and greed. Real happiness or lasting joy is in associating ourselves with Truth or saints, where life is nothing but Truth, such as Shree Krishna (Yogeshwar and the author of Gita), Buddha, Jesus, Mirabai, Shree Ramakrishna, Mahatma Gandhi. (The reader may note the current flock of so called dharma gurus are like Ravanas in the form of sadhus here to abduct the Sitas, the worldly deluded people).

Finally Mirabai says, "I am established in the ultimate Truth - Saints - and need not wander in the temples, ashrams, caves or monastery." God is all pervasive as we learn in Gitaji (6:29-32). Why search for the Truth outside or elsewhere when it is within us, the nearest and dearest friend of ours all the time?

The seventh message is that the Guru is really the Truth residing in all of us, so go beyond personalities and limited teachings of the denominations of various religions. The true prophets have taught us this in every word they spoke and lived. The ignorant masses conveniently interpret religions to justify their lives as frogs in a well that have never seen the ocean. We can overcome the samsar or the cycle of birth and death only by surrendering to Truth (Gita 12:6-7). Let us not seek the horns of a rabbit or the teeth of a crow. We can overcome miseries like Arjuna or Uddhava by surrendering our ego and doing what the Lord expects of us. (Gita 18:72-73).

The conclusive eighth message is to surrender to the Real Saints and not to the deceptive dharma gurus of today -- Mirabai surrenders to Lord Krishna -- Giridhar -- Infinite Strength, Wisdom or Love.

--Swami Radhanandaji