Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Some people have truly learned that pain and pleasure are the same. Being honored and being shamed are the same to them too.
They stay steady whether joy or sorrow comes. Those people have grasped what is truly real in this world.
This one is about staying steady, whatever life brings.
Guru Tegh Bahadur names the heart of his teaching: a deep calm that stays the same through all of life's ups and downs. Sukh dukh dono sam kar jaanai — someone who knows sukh, pleasure, and dukh, pain, as the same. A-or maan apmaanaa — and honor and dishonor too. Harakh sog tay rahai ateetaa — who stays above harakh, joy, and sog, sorrow. Look at the pairs: pain and pleasure, praise and shame, happy and sad. They are like see-saws that toss most lives up and down. We chase what feels good and run from what hurts. We want praise and dread shame. So we're always waiting to see which way the see-saw tips.
Guru Tegh Bahadur points to someone who has stepped off the see-saw. They have learned, deep down, that pleasure and pain are "the same" in one way: both are passing weather. You don't have to clutch one or fight the other. Praise and shame are just the world's changing opinions, not something to live for. Joy and sorrow both come and go. Such a person stays ateetaa, above it all. Not cold, not unfeeling, but steady, rooted in something deeper than the swings. Think of a tree in the wind. The leaves shake, but the trunk holds.
And the promise is big: tin jag tat pachhaanaa — they have recognized the tat, the real thing, in this world. The real thing is what doesn't swing. Elsewhere in Raag Maajh, pleasure and pain are called two sets of clothes we are given to wear. Here that idea sits at the very center of the path. To know the opposites as one, and to stand steady through them, is to touch what is real.
Which seesaw tips you most — pleasure/pain, praise/shame, joy/sorrow — and what would it feel like to step off it?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI