The austere, bracing voice of the Ninth Guru on detachment: forsake pride, flee what distorts you, and step off the seesaws of pleasure-and-pain, honor-and-dishonor, praise-and-blame — seeking instead nirbaan, the still freedom beyond them, a difficult game only a rare few master.
A Note on the Author
This short composition is by Guru Tegh Bahadur (Mehl 9) — the ninth Guru, whose bani is often described as spare and unflinching, much concerned with detachment and the impermanence of the world. Placed here in Raag Gauree among the Maajh-section compositions, it brings a different and complementary note — where the neighboring Guru Arjan shabads sing of longing and refuge, Guru Tegh Bahadur speaks of the steadiness that frees the soul from being tossed by the world at all.
The Arc
The Rahao (Pauri0) addresses the holy directly with the hardest counsel first — forsake the pride of your mind — and names what to flee, day and night: kaam (desire), krodh (anger), and the company of evil. Pauri1 names the heart of the teaching: the soul that knows pain and pleasure as the same, honor and dishonor as the same, detached from joy and sorrow, realizes the true essence. And Pauri2 presses to the sharpest seesaw — renounce both praise and blame, seek instead the state of Nirvaanaa — and closes with bracing honesty: this is such a difficult game; only a few Gurmukhs understand it.
Key Vocabulary and Images
forsake pride: the hardest counsel, given first and to the holy — spiritual pride is the subtlest and most persistent enemy.
run from (kaam, krodh, kusang): the counsel, in this rendering, to keep away from these rather than wrestle them — commentators read distance as the surer defence.
equanimity (sam): knowing pain and pleasure, honor and dishonor, joy and sorrow as the same — stepping off the seesaws of the opposites.
renounce praise and blame: the craving for praise and the dread of blame as a single hook; freedom requires letting go of both.
nirbaan (rendered Nirvaanaa): a term shared with the wider Indic traditions, read here as the state of deep, still freedom beyond the swinging opposites — sought in place of the world's verdicts.
Themes and Cross-Connections
Guru Tegh Bahadur's teaching of equanimity is the steady center here, and it connects directly to the Maajh ki Vaar's image of pleasure and pain as the two garments given (Pauri 79) — both worn, neither clutched. Where the Vaar states it in passing, the Ninth Guru makes it the whole path: to know the opposites as one and stand unshaken through them is to realize the true essence. His counsel to run from the passions rather than fight them can be read as practical wisdom about the Panch Vikaar — that distance, not wrestling, is often the surest defense. And his closing honesty — a difficult game; only a few understand it — neither softens the demand nor scolds the reader for finding it hard, but names the difficulty plainly and honors the rare few who manage it.
For Raag Maajh
Among the longing, refuge-seeking shabads of the Maajh section, this composition sounds a complementary and steadying note. The longing traditionally associated with Maajh aches with the swings of separation and union, sorrow and joy; Guru Tegh Bahadur points to the deeper ground beneath the swinging — the still freedom in which pleasure and pain, praise and blame, are all seen as passing weather, and the soul rests not in the world's fickle verdicts but in the peace of the One. It is that longing met from another side: not only the ache for the Beloved, but the unshakable steadiness of a soul that has stepped off the seesaws of the world entirely.
The austere, bracing voice of the Ninth Guru on detachment: forsake pride, flee what distorts you, and step off the seesaws of pleasure-and-pain, honor-and-dishonor, praise-and-blame — seeking instead nirbaan, the still freedom beyond them, a difficult game only a rare few master.
A Note on the Author
This short composition is by Guru Tegh Bahadur (Mehl 9) — the ninth Guru, whose bani is often described as spare and unflinching, much concerned with detachment and the impermanence of the world. Placed here in Raag Gauree among the Maajh-section compositions, it brings a different and complementary note — where the neighboring Guru Arjan shabads sing of longing and refuge, Guru Tegh Bahadur speaks of the steadiness that frees the soul from being tossed by the world at all.
The Arc
The Rahao (Pauri0) addresses the holy directly with the hardest counsel first — forsake the pride of your mind — and names what to flee, day and night: kaam (desire), krodh (anger), and the company of evil. Pauri1 names the heart of the teaching: the soul that knows pain and pleasure as the same, honor and dishonor as the same, detached from joy and sorrow, realizes the true essence. And Pauri2 presses to the sharpest seesaw — renounce both praise and blame, seek instead the state of Nirvaanaa — and closes with bracing honesty: this is such a difficult game; only a few Gurmukhs understand it.
Key Vocabulary and Images
Themes and Cross-Connections
Guru Tegh Bahadur's teaching of equanimity is the steady center here, and it connects directly to the Maajh ki Vaar's image of pleasure and pain as the two garments given (Pauri 79) — both worn, neither clutched. Where the Vaar states it in passing, the Ninth Guru makes it the whole path: to know the opposites as one and stand unshaken through them is to realize the true essence. His counsel to run from the passions rather than fight them can be read as practical wisdom about the Panch Vikaar — that distance, not wrestling, is often the surest defense. And his closing honesty — a difficult game; only a few understand it — neither softens the demand nor scolds the reader for finding it hard, but names the difficulty plainly and honors the rare few who manage it.
For Raag Maajh
Among the longing, refuge-seeking shabads of the Maajh section, this composition sounds a complementary and steadying note. The longing traditionally associated with Maajh aches with the swings of separation and union, sorrow and joy; Guru Tegh Bahadur points to the deeper ground beneath the swinging — the still freedom in which pleasure and pain, praise and blame, are all seen as passing weather, and the soul rests not in the world's fickle verdicts but in the peace of the One. It is that longing met from another side: not only the ache for the Beloved, but the unshakable steadiness of a soul that has stepped off the seesaws of the world entirely.