Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
In Maghar, the souls who sit close beside their Beloved are the truly beautiful ones. How could you even measure their glory? The One folds them right into itself.
Their hearts and minds blossom open like flowers, and they have the warm company of the holy. But those who go without that company stay all alone — their ache never lifts, and they fall into the grip of fear and death.
The ones who have truly delighted in the One are lifted up, again and again, shining. They wear a necklace strung with the jewels of the Name. I would gladly be the dust at the feet of those who take shelter at the One's door. Those who adore the One in Maghar never go round the painful circle again.
Maghar (November-December) brings the first real cold of winter. Against that chill, the stanza opens with an image of warmth and closeness: those who sit with their Beloved Husband Lord are beautiful. To sit beside the One — near, settled, companioned — is the warmth that the cold month makes you long for. And such souls are not merely comforted; they are blended into the One: their Lord and Master blends them with Himself — the drop entering the ocean once more.
The stanza draws its sharpest contrast around company. Those near the One blossom forth and enjoy the companionship of the Holy Saints; their hearts open like flowers even in winter. But those who lack the Company of the Holy remain all alone — and in their aloneness, their pain never departs. This is one of Guru Arjan's deepest convictions, shared with Guru Amar Das: you are not meant to walk this path in isolation. The Saadh Sangat is not a luxury but a lifeline; without it, the soul is left exposed to the cold, in the grip of its old fears.
The beautiful image the stanza gives the realized soul is a necklace of the jewels, emeralds and rubies of the Lord's Name. Where the world adorns itself with gems that can be lost or stolen, these souls wear the Name itself as their jewelry — an adornment that is also their treasure and their protection. And Guru Arjan, as so often, places himself not above such souls but beneath them: Nanak seeks the dust of the feet of those who take to the Sanctuary of the Lord's Door. The most exalted souls in the song are honored by the singer taking the lowest place before them — and those who adore the One, even in cold Maghar, never have to walk the painful circle of forgetting again.
Who is the 'company' that helps your heart stay open even in cold seasons — and are you keeping near them?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI