I live by Your Name; nothing compares to You, and when everything else falls away, You are the one who stays.
The Arc
The refrain — I live by Your Name — opens and closes the first verse and sets the whole shabad's key. From there Guru Nanak moves through the great themes: nothing is the One's equal; there is one Master but two roads, and the quarrels of the world grow from choosing separateness over oneness; the devotees who let go of the small self glow like gold in the Court; and the endless hunger for "more" is finally stilled not by getting more but by tasting the sweetest thing there is — the Name.
Key Vocabulary
jeevaa tayrai naa-ay: I live by Your Name
agam agochar: beyond reach, beyond the senses
du-ay raah: the two roads — oneness versus duality
hukam savaaranhaaraa: the Hukam that also beautifies
paaras: the stone that turns lead to gold
naam mahaa ras meethaa: the Name, the supreme sweet essence
Themes and Cross-Connections
The "two roads" from one Master is Guru Nanak's compact picture of doojaa bhaa-o, the love of the "second" — the illusion of separation that philosophy.md names as the root of suffering. The closing move — craving stilled by a sweeter taste rather than by force — is the same medicine Dhanaasaree offers throughout: longing met, not suppressed. The paaras image links this shabad to its companion Chhant B00C1476.
For Raag Dhanaasaree
The raag of longing here becomes a raag of belonging: the ache of "how will I ever be at home?" answered by a Name that stays when all else goes.
Translation Notes
The line on the summons that comes "by Command" (the call at life's end) is rendered as beginnings and endings being one continuous flow, keeping Death-terror out of the child text per the project's wellbeing rules. "Loads of sin on the head" is softened to "a heavy load of mistakes."
I live by Your Name; nothing compares to You, and when everything else falls away, You are the one who stays.
The Arc
The refrain — I live by Your Name — opens and closes the first verse and sets the whole shabad's key. From there Guru Nanak moves through the great themes: nothing is the One's equal; there is one Master but two roads, and the quarrels of the world grow from choosing separateness over oneness; the devotees who let go of the small self glow like gold in the Court; and the endless hunger for "more" is finally stilled not by getting more but by tasting the sweetest thing there is — the Name.
Key Vocabulary
Themes and Cross-Connections
The "two roads" from one Master is Guru Nanak's compact picture of doojaa bhaa-o, the love of the "second" — the illusion of separation that philosophy.md names as the root of suffering. The closing move — craving stilled by a sweeter taste rather than by force — is the same medicine Dhanaasaree offers throughout: longing met, not suppressed. The paaras image links this shabad to its companion Chhant B00C1476.
For Raag Dhanaasaree
The raag of longing here becomes a raag of belonging: the ache of "how will I ever be at home?" answered by a Name that stays when all else goes.
Translation Notes
The line on the summons that comes "by Command" (the call at life's end) is rendered as beginnings and endings being one continuous flow, keeping Death-terror out of the child text per the project's wellbeing rules. "Loads of sin on the head" is softened to "a heavy load of mistakes."