"O my mind, place your hope in the One who holds the world -- that hope holds you; every other slips away."
The Arc
This is the very first composition of Raag Gond, and Guru Ram Das opens it with a single, patient meditation on one word: aas -- hope. Where do you put it?
Verse 1 (P0) answers with the promise: hope in the One opens countless fruits, and no honest effort is ever lost, because the One is present in all.
The Rahau (P1) is the refrain -- the note everything returns to: set your hope on the One who holds the whole world; hope placed elsewhere runs empty.
Verse 2 (P2) turns to Maya and family -- love them, but they cannot be the foundation of your deepest hope; the One who carries you across carries them too.
Verse 3 (P3) names the root of misplaced hope -- the feeling of separation (bhaa-o doojaa) -- and contrasts it with the true Beloved who honors every effort.
Verse 4 (P4) dissolves the question entirely: even the hoping is the One's own movement in us, and hope completes itself in darshan -- one true sight of the One that leaves the heart full.
Key Vocabulary
aas / aasaa -- hope, expectation. The spine of the whole shabad.
jagdees, gusaa-ee -- names for the One as Lord and keeper of the world.
maa-i-aa (Maya) -- the visible, shifting world of things; not evil, but not a foundation.
kutamb -- family; here, the attachment that tempts us to rest our whole hope on people.
bhaa-o doojaa -- "the love of duality," the sense of being separate from the One.
ghaali-aa ... ik til na gavaa-ee -- "not a sesame-seed of effort is lost."
darshan / triptaa-ee -- the sight of the One / the contentment it brings.
Themes and Cross-Connections
The shabad is a gentle re-ordering of the heart's attachments, not a rejection of them. It never says stop loving your family or your friends; it asks only where the ground of your hope rests. That distinction -- love people fully, but do not make finite things carry an infinite weight -- runs throughout Gurbani. The closing move, that hope and desire are all Yours, echoes the Japji vision of Hukam, the flow of existence: even our wanting is part of the current, not a private possession. And the resolution in darshan rather than acquisition ties this shabad to the recurring Sikh insight that fulfillment is a matter of seeing clearly, not of getting more.
For Raag Gond
This composition opens Raag Gond -- the first shabad of the raag, which is why the Shabad numbering restarts at 1 here even though the file sits inside the 17-Raag-Bilaaval folder (it is the bridge-opener into the next raag). Gond is a warm, calling raag, and Guru Ram Das sets its keynote with a tender, repeated address to mayray man -- "O my mind" -- coaxing rather than commanding. Flag for the Gond closer: the raag begins here on the theme of rightly-placed hope; the closer should acknowledge this opening bookend.
Translation Notes
Rahau placement: the rahau is a standalone unit in Pauri1 (not merged into P0). P0 carries the header, the full mangal, the Raag Gond Chaupade Mehl 4 Ghar 1 line, and verse ||1||.
Wellbeing softening: the literal "your life will be wasted and lost" (P2) is bent toward "or I lose my way"; "what can these poor creatures do" (bapurhay) is rendered as a gentle statement that the power simply isn't theirs to give, avoiding contempt.
Family honored, not rejected: foregrounded the shabad's own turn -- the One "saves your whole family as well" -- so the teaching reads as re-ordering love, not renouncing it.
Self-address: Nanak's "servant" framing is carried as first-person humility ("my heart"), in keeping with the empty-handedness voice rather than self-abasement.
"O my mind, place your hope in the One who holds the world -- that hope holds you; every other slips away."
The Arc
This is the very first composition of Raag Gond, and Guru Ram Das opens it with a single, patient meditation on one word: aas -- hope. Where do you put it?
Key Vocabulary
Themes and Cross-Connections
The shabad is a gentle re-ordering of the heart's attachments, not a rejection of them. It never says stop loving your family or your friends; it asks only where the ground of your hope rests. That distinction -- love people fully, but do not make finite things carry an infinite weight -- runs throughout Gurbani. The closing move, that hope and desire are all Yours, echoes the Japji vision of Hukam, the flow of existence: even our wanting is part of the current, not a private possession. And the resolution in darshan rather than acquisition ties this shabad to the recurring Sikh insight that fulfillment is a matter of seeing clearly, not of getting more.
For Raag Gond
This composition opens Raag Gond -- the first shabad of the raag, which is why the Shabad numbering restarts at 1 here even though the file sits inside the 17-Raag-Bilaaval folder (it is the bridge-opener into the next raag). Gond is a warm, calling raag, and Guru Ram Das sets its keynote with a tender, repeated address to mayray man -- "O my mind" -- coaxing rather than commanding. Flag for the Gond closer: the raag begins here on the theme of rightly-placed hope; the closer should acknowledge this opening bookend.
Translation Notes
Last updated: 2026-07-09