You can love a hundred different things with all your might. Point that same love at the One, and it carries you home.
The Arc
Guru Arjan asks to be freed from the round of beginnings and endings and, worn out, rests at the door, held in good company, sweetened by love, asking to be attached to the very hem of the One. He calls the One the friend of the gentle-hearted and yearns for the dust of the saints. The world can feel like a dark pit, so he asks for a hand up and for the Name. He remembers that every action is seen and held. He asks the Destroyer of fear to lift the fallen, admitting his faults are past counting, and seizes the One's support. Then the hymn blossoms into a long, beautiful cascade of comparisons -- the partridge and the moon, the fish and the water, the bee and the lotus, the bird and the sun, the mother and her child, the deer and the bell, the rainbird and the rain -- each one a way to say: love the One with exactly that intensity. It ends with the promise that whoever sings, hears, and writes this praise is carried across, and lifts up everyone connected to them.
Key Vocabulary
deenaa naath -- the friend and protector of the gentle and the humble
bikhiaa koop -- a pit; the world can feel like a dark well when we are lost in it
Chitr and Gupt -- in old stories, the keepers who record every deed; here, a gentle way of saying every action is seen and remembered
chand-chakor, meen-jal, al-kamal, chakvi-sooraj -- the partridge and moon, fish and water, bee and lotus, bird and sun: old images of love that cannot be pulled apart
bohith -- a boat or ship that carries you safely across
Themes and Cross-Connections
Refuge and release; the world as a pit we can be lifted from; every longing in the world turned toward the One; and the promise that singing, hearing, and writing this praise lifts up not just you but everyone around you. The great cascade of nature-similes makes divine love feel as natural as a fish loving water.
For Raag Bilaaval
Bilaaval's warmth suits a hymn built from tender, familiar pictures of love.
Translation Notes
Chitr and Gupt and the 'dreadful Messenger of Death' (Pauri 3) are softened into the reassuring idea that every action is seen and held, dropping the terror. The similes of harmful attachment in Pauri 8 (moth, thief, elephant, gambler) are kept abstract, used only to name the strength of a pull, and repointed toward loving the One. The nature-similes (Pauris 6-9) are child-friendly and kept vivid.
You can love a hundred different things with all your might. Point that same love at the One, and it carries you home.
The Arc
Guru Arjan asks to be freed from the round of beginnings and endings and, worn out, rests at the door, held in good company, sweetened by love, asking to be attached to the very hem of the One. He calls the One the friend of the gentle-hearted and yearns for the dust of the saints. The world can feel like a dark pit, so he asks for a hand up and for the Name. He remembers that every action is seen and held. He asks the Destroyer of fear to lift the fallen, admitting his faults are past counting, and seizes the One's support. Then the hymn blossoms into a long, beautiful cascade of comparisons -- the partridge and the moon, the fish and the water, the bee and the lotus, the bird and the sun, the mother and her child, the deer and the bell, the rainbird and the rain -- each one a way to say: love the One with exactly that intensity. It ends with the promise that whoever sings, hears, and writes this praise is carried across, and lifts up everyone connected to them.
Key Vocabulary
Themes and Cross-Connections
Refuge and release; the world as a pit we can be lifted from; every longing in the world turned toward the One; and the promise that singing, hearing, and writing this praise lifts up not just you but everyone around you. The great cascade of nature-similes makes divine love feel as natural as a fish loving water.
For Raag Bilaaval
Bilaaval's warmth suits a hymn built from tender, familiar pictures of love.
Translation Notes
Chitr and Gupt and the 'dreadful Messenger of Death' (Pauri 3) are softened into the reassuring idea that every action is seen and held, dropping the terror. The similes of harmful attachment in Pauri 8 (moth, thief, elephant, gambler) are kept abstract, used only to name the strength of a pull, and repointed toward loving the One. The nature-similes (Pauris 6-9) are child-friendly and kept vivid.
Last updated: 2026-07-08