What would the people lose, if I became pleasing to You?
The Arc
A nine-verse Ashtapadee of the gatekeeper — quieter than its neighbors, and among the most tender Mehl 1 hymns in the raag. Verse 1 opens with the dyed mind that speaks Truth, and the smiling challenge to the world's objectors: what do the people lose if I please You? The Pause sets the term and the wage: meditate as long as breath lasts; the profit is the praising itself, and peace comes inside it. Verse 2 asks for service as a gift and declares praise a respiration: I live by praising You. Verse 3 takes the post of darvaan — the gatekeeper at His Gate — and discovers devotion's wondrous mechanism: awe itself carries pain away. Verse 4 relocates both place and time: the Court is entered through the Name now, and the only auspicious hour is the one in which the Shabad is recognized. Verse 5 packs the road-provisions — truth, contentment, love; empty the mind of corruption and Truth is given. Verse 6 finds grace beneath grace: the True One Himself plants true love in the truthful, the same Hand administering justice. Verse 7 rests in settled service of the priceless Name. Verse 8 closes with the full measured distance — You sublime, I lowly — bridged by a title ("I am called Your servant") and the final petition: the Glance of Grace, that the separated one may merge again.
Key Vocabulary
Raata-o — dyed, steeped (verse 1): the Rang image — true speech as the color that a Name-dyed mind cannot help showing.
Darvaan — gatekeeper (verse 3): the devotee's chosen post — of the house, at the threshold, facing outward for the Beloved.
Hairaan — wonder, astonishment (verse 3): devotion's pain-dissolving property; awe as the heart's enlargement past the ache.
Vaylaa sach parvaan — the true, accepted hour (verse 4): the auspicious-time culture set aside; the sacred moment is whenever the Word is recognized.
Tosaa — road-provisions (verse 5): truth, contentment, and love as the rations that do not spoil.
Vaandhee-aa — the separated one(s) (verse 8): Aasaa's name for the soul; hope as the certainty that separation is not final.
Translation Notes
Verse 3 — bhagat tayree hairaan darad gavaavhee. The Literal Meaning reads "How wonderful is Your devotional worship! It removes all pains." The Gurmukhi also supports: "Your devotees, wonder-struck, lose their pain" — with hairaan describing the devotees rather than the worship. Both readings share the same heart: it is the wonder that dissolves the pain; the rendering here keeps that mechanism visible.
Verse 8 — milai sach vaandhee-aa. "That he, the separated one, may merge with You again" — the "again" and "with You" are reasonable expansions; the Gurmukhi says compactly "may the separated one obtain the True One." The direction is identical.
Themes and Cross-Connections
Verse 4's redefinition of the auspicious hour is the Baarah Maaha's epilogue in miniature — grace, not the calendar, makes a moment holy — here applied to the daily clock rather than the year. The gatekeeper post extends the daasan-daas humility of the neighboring hymn into an image of station: belonging expressed as faithful threshold-keeping. Verse 3's wonder-dissolves-pain is the project's Waheguru teaching operating in reverse — not awe as the response to seeing, but awe as the medicine that restores the seeing. And verse 6's planted love completes the grace-escalation running through this whole Ashtapadee block: the Way revealed, devotion implanted, the impulse to serve inspired — and now even the love itself, gardened by its own Object.
For Raag Aasaa
The raag of hope here learns its own name for the soul: vaandhee-aa, the separated one. Everything Aasaa teaches is folded into that word and its cure — the separation is real enough to ache, and it was never the final word: one Glance rejoins what was never truly two.
What would the people lose, if I became pleasing to You?
The Arc
A nine-verse Ashtapadee of the gatekeeper — quieter than its neighbors, and among the most tender Mehl 1 hymns in the raag. Verse 1 opens with the dyed mind that speaks Truth, and the smiling challenge to the world's objectors: what do the people lose if I please You? The Pause sets the term and the wage: meditate as long as breath lasts; the profit is the praising itself, and peace comes inside it. Verse 2 asks for service as a gift and declares praise a respiration: I live by praising You. Verse 3 takes the post of darvaan — the gatekeeper at His Gate — and discovers devotion's wondrous mechanism: awe itself carries pain away. Verse 4 relocates both place and time: the Court is entered through the Name now, and the only auspicious hour is the one in which the Shabad is recognized. Verse 5 packs the road-provisions — truth, contentment, love; empty the mind of corruption and Truth is given. Verse 6 finds grace beneath grace: the True One Himself plants true love in the truthful, the same Hand administering justice. Verse 7 rests in settled service of the priceless Name. Verse 8 closes with the full measured distance — You sublime, I lowly — bridged by a title ("I am called Your servant") and the final petition: the Glance of Grace, that the separated one may merge again.
Key Vocabulary
Translation Notes
Themes and Cross-Connections
Verse 4's redefinition of the auspicious hour is the Baarah Maaha's epilogue in miniature — grace, not the calendar, makes a moment holy — here applied to the daily clock rather than the year. The gatekeeper post extends the daasan-daas humility of the neighboring hymn into an image of station: belonging expressed as faithful threshold-keeping. Verse 3's wonder-dissolves-pain is the project's Waheguru teaching operating in reverse — not awe as the response to seeing, but awe as the medicine that restores the seeing. And verse 6's planted love completes the grace-escalation running through this whole Ashtapadee block: the Way revealed, devotion implanted, the impulse to serve inspired — and now even the love itself, gardened by its own Object.
For Raag Aasaa
The raag of hope here learns its own name for the soul: vaandhee-aa, the separated one. Everything Aasaa teaches is folded into that word and its cure — the separation is real enough to ache, and it was never the final word: one Glance rejoins what was never truly two.
Last updated: 2026-07-03