Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
There is a kind of awe so vast and so weighty that all my clever thoughts feel light as a feather beside it. My quick words weigh almost nothing. So let me carry that awe the way you would carry something precious balanced on your head: steady, careful, willing to bear its weight. And when I am open, grace lets me rest my attention on the teaching and truly take it in.
This is the opening of Guru Nanak's Gauree, and its key word is bhau -- usually translated "Fear of God," but it is not terror. It is reverent awe: the trembling wonder before something vast and holy. Nanak weighs two things against each other. Awe is bhaaraa -- heavy, weighty, real -- while the intellect and our speech are haulee, lightweight. The cleverness we are so proud of has almost no weight next to genuine awe. "Placing it upon your head and bearing the weight" is an image of accepting awe as a discipline you carry, not a mood that visits. And the last line guards against pride: even this comes through the Glance of Grace.
When was the last time something filled you with awe so big it made your busy thoughts go quiet?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI