Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Happiness wells up inside the Gurmukh. Pain never takes hold.
The Gurmukh overcomes pride, and the mind becomes clean and pure.
This one says hard things still happen, but the Gurmukh isn't crushed by them.
The verse speaks boldly: dukh kaday na ho-ee — pain never takes hold. It means this carefully. The Gurmukh's life still has hard days. This same raag holds Guru Nanak's hymns about a terrible invasion, so no one is pretending otherwise. Here dukh means the suffering the ego spins out of what happens.
Think of rain. It falls on everyone. One person says, "My whole day is ruined." Another grabs an umbrella and keeps going. The rain is the same; the story we tell is different.
Gurmukh sookh oopjai — for the Gurmukh, happiness wells up from inside, like a spring, not from what happens. Gurmukh ha-umai maaree-ai — the Gurmukh overcomes the ego. Then events stay events: weather, not wounds.
Think of a recent hurt: how much was the event itself, and how much was the story you wove around it?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI