Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
By remembering, remembering, holding the One in my heart, I found real peace. All day and all night — every hour — I sing about how good You are. And so every wish I truly had came true, and the kind of deep sorrow that used to swallow me up just doesn't get to me anymore.
The shabad of total surrender closes with its quiet reward. "Simar simar... sukh paaiaa" — by remembering and remembering, peace was found. Notice the order, which is the whole teaching: the peace did not come first and then make remembrance easy. The remembrance came first, and peace followed. Simran is not the result of feeling good; it is the practice that produces the good.
"Aath pahar" — eight watches, all twenty-four hours. This is not asking the boys to sit and chant all day. The "aath pahar" remembrance Guru Arjan means is a continuous undertone, a background awareness of the One that hums beneath everything else you do — playing, studying, eating, arguing. Like a song stuck in your head, except it's the awareness that you are held. It doesn't interrupt your life; it colors it.
"Kade na hoi dukhaalaa" — never again swallowed by sorrow. This is a bold promise, and it needs honest handling. It does not mean a surrendered person never feels pain — pain is part of being alive. It means the deep, identity-level sorrow, the "everything is wrong and I am alone" despair, loses its grip. When you have genuinely handed everything back (verse one), bowed (verse two), trusted that here is heaven (verse three), then sorrow can visit, but it can no longer move in and rule the house. The shabad's full arc — empty your hands, bow, trust, remember — adds up to a heart that sadness cannot conquer.
What's one small thing you could carry as a quiet background awareness through your whole day, the way a good song stays with you?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI