Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
The holy teacher handed me the medicine of the Name. It cut out everything wrong and broken in me, and I became clean and pure. Joy rose up inside me, and all my pain drained out — every ache, every sorrow, simply gone. The right medicine healed what nothing else could.
This pauri returns to a favorite image of the section: the Naam as medicine. Naam aukhadh mo kau saadhoo deeaa — "the saadhoo (holy one) gave me the aukhadh (medicine) of the Name." Recall Shabad 2, where the cure for love's illness was a mantar, the Naam itself. Here the saint is the physician who dispenses it. The point is that the Name is not merely comforting words; it is medicine — something that actually heals a sickness in the soul.
What does it cure? Kilbikh kaate nirmal theeaa — "it cut out the kilbikh (the wrongs, the deep faults, the accumulated harm) and [I] became nirmal (pure, spotless)." The medicine does not just soothe symptoms; it cuts out (kaate) the root sickness — the wrongs and the ego-grime (the mail of Shabad 3) — leaving the soul clean. This is healing at the source, not management of pain.
And the result is total: anad bhaiaa niksee sabh peeraa, sagal binaase dardaa — "anad (bliss) arose, all the peeraa (pain) niksee (came out, drained away), and all the dard (suffering, ache) was destroyed." Notice the completeness: sabh (all), sagal (every). The medicine of the Name does not partially help; it empties the soul of its pain entirely and replaces it with bliss. This is the deep promise of the section — that the Naam is the cure for the fundamental dis-ease of human existence (the dukh of Shabad 13, born of forgetting). When the Name is taken as medicine, given by the saint, the suffering drains out and joy floods in. The seeker who was sick is now well, clean, and full of bliss — not by her own doctoring, but because the saint gave her the one medicine that works.
The verse calls the Name a "medicine" that heals at the root, not just soothes the symptoms. What is the difference between something that just makes you feel better for a moment and something that actually heals you?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI