Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
By listening (Suniai) — the secrets of the universe, the wisdom of ancestors and divine beings become known. By listening — the nature of the earth and the vastness of the sky becomes clear. By listening — the mysteries of this world and beyond open up. By listening — death loses its grip on you.
For those who are devoted — there is constant blossoming.
By listening — suffering and the weight of wrong actions dissolve.
Pauris 8 through 11 form a beautiful sequence — all four dedicated to Suniai, the practice of deep listening. They are followed immediately by a second sequence, Pauris 12 through 15, dedicated to Mannai, the practice of accepting and living in accordance with what one has truly heard. Together these eight pauris form the heart of Guru Nanak’s map of how the inner life works: first you learn to listen, then you learn to receive and embody what you’ve heard.
Suniai has a specific meaning in Japji Sahib. It is listening to the Naam — the Name and Word of the Oneness — and to the Gurbani (the sacred scripture, the Guru’s word) with full attention, love, and openness. It is not passive hearing. It is the practice of receiving the divine Word so deeply that it actually changes you. But Guru Nanak extends it beyond formal scripture: what is being listened to is not only teachings or wisdom from a Guru. It is existence itself — the hum underneath everything. Suniai is not a technique so much as a quality of inner stillness. It can be cultivated through meditation, through reflection on daily experiences, through genuine attention to the world around you.
Suniai — listening — is the foundation. Before anything else, you have to be able to receive. And genuine listening is one of the rarest human capacities. Most of what we call listening is actually just waiting for our turn to speak, or filtering what we hear through what we already believe.
Guru Nanak is describing something deeper — a quality of attention that mystics across traditions have pointed at. The Sufi poet Rumi opens his masterwork Masnavi with the word bishnow — listen. The Buddhist practice of mindfulness is fundamentally about learning to receive experience without immediately reacting to it. Jesus repeatedly said "those who have ears, let them hear" — pointing at the same gap between hearing and truly listening.
What does deep listening actually look like? It might be sitting quietly for a few minutes and just noticing what’s happening inside you — not trying to fix anything, just paying attention. It might be going for a walk outside and actually hearing the birds, the wind, the sounds around you instead of being lost in your thoughts. It might be when something difficult happens — a fight with a friend, a bad day at school — instead of immediately reacting, you pause and ask: what is this showing me?
Suffering and past mistakes dissolve through deep listening — not because the mistakes didn’t happen, but because when you truly listen to what they were trying to show you, they stop being just burdens and become teachers. Every difficult experience was pointing at something. When you finally hear what it was saying, the weight lifts.
One important distinction: if someone was ever cruel to you or hurt you — that is different. In those moments, deep listening doesn’t mean asking “what did I do to deserve this?” It means hearing something else clearly: I deserved better. I deserve protection. Speaking up matters. That too is the universe speaking. Suniai means hearing all of it honestly — including that.
The capacity to truly listen — to a friend, to a parent, to their own inner life — is becoming increasingly rare. And Guru Nanak is saying it's the doorway to everything.
Think of a time someone really listened to you — not just waited for their turn to talk, but actually heard you. How did that feel? And when did you last do that for someone else?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI