Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Your body is air and water and warmth woven together, a kind of toy that the restless mind plays with. It has nine openings you can see -- and one secret tenth gate. Think about this carefully, and you will understand.
Guru Nanak says your body is made of borrowed things, with nine doors you can see and one hidden door inside.
He uses the old way of describing the body: it is air, water and fire mixed together. These are borrowed materials, not the real you. The restless mind plays with the body like a toy.
The nine doors are the body's ordinary openings: two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, the mouth, and the two lower openings. Then there is the dasvaa duaar, the Tenth Gate. It is a hidden inner opening where your awareness meets the One. Gurbani comes back to this picture again and again. It is the doorway of waking up.
Think of a house with nine windows everyone can see, and one secret door that opens onto a garden. Bujh ray gi-aanee — understand this, O wise one. Guru Nanak is not asking you to simply believe. He is inviting you to look and find out for yourself.
What might the "tenth gate" -- the hidden inner doorway -- be pointing to inside you?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI