Raag Gauree
Commentary

Raag Gauree, Chau-Pada, Mehl 5 (Guru Arjan)

Keep the teaching safe in your mind, hold the One who both keeps and releases, and worry has nothing left to hold onto.

The Arc

An anti-anxiety shabad. Pauri 0: keep the Shabad in mind and worry lifts. The Rahao (Pauri 1): there is one Oneness that both holds and releases — nothing outside its care. Pauri 2: remembrance carries you across the ocean of fire. Pauri 3: quiet attention brings dignity here and beyond. Pauri 4: set everything down, enter shelter, and peace arrives.

Key Vocabulary

  • chintaa / andaysay: anxiety, worry — dissolved by remembrance
  • maarai raakhai ayko: the one Oneness that both keeps and releases
  • agan saagar: the ocean of fire — a life of burning craving, crossed not drained
  • maan: honor, dignity, being received
  • sagal ti-aag: setting everything down to enter shelter

Themes and Cross-Connections

The shabad's recurring target is chintaa — anxiety — and its cure is a single trust: one Oneness holds it all. This aligns with the project's Hukam lens (one flow of existence, not rival powers) and its gentle reframing of 'preserves and destroys' as holding-and-releasing rather than reward-and-punishment.

For Raag Gauree

Gauree's sober, steadying mood is exactly right for a poem written to quiet an anxious mind.

Translation Notes

The Rahao's maarai raakhai ('destroys and preserves' in the literal) is rendered as 'holds and releases' to keep the wellbeing frame — one caring flow rather than a punishing power.

Last updated: 2026

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