Raag Gauree
Commentary

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

With the One as friend, nothing essential is lacking — pain and doubt flee, lesser cravings lose their pull, and what remains is a peace that lasts.

The Arc

Pauri 0 poses the keynote: with the all-pervading One as friend, what could be lacking? The Rahao (Pauri 1) gives the mechanism — love fastened to the One, and pain, hurt, and confused wandering flee. Pauri 2: having tasted the deep flavor, lesser flavors lose their grip. Pauri 3: real standing before the One frees you from chasing smaller approval. Pauri 4 gathers it home — belonging wholly to the Owner of everything is lasting peace.

Key Vocabulary

  • mee-t saajan samee-aa: the friend and companion who is all-pervading — intimacy and vastness at once
  • preet gobind si-o laagee: love fastened to the One — the anchor from which suffering flees
  • bharam: doubt, confused wandering — the sense of separateness dissolved by love
  • har ras / an ras: the flavor of the One / other flavors — the deep taste that quiets lesser cravings
  • sadaa sukh: lasting peace — the settled, permanent well-being that closes the shabad

Themes and Cross-Connections

The shabad is built on the intimacy of the One as saajan — friend — a recurring warmth in Guru Arjan. Its psychology is subtle and healthy: cravings quiet not through repression but through satisfaction (har ras found, an ras fades), and security before the One ends the anxious hunger for lesser approval. Bharam named beside pain reflects philosophy.md: much suffering is the confusion of feeling separate, which love for the One resolves.

For Raag Gauree

Gauree's reflective calm suits a shabad whose whole movement is toward settling — from the confidence of friendship, through the fading of lesser pulls, to a peace that simply stays.

Read this shabad →
← Back to Raag Gauree