Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Serve the True One and praise the True One. When the True Name lives in you, pain can never really get hold of you. Those who serve the Giver of peace *find* peace — they settle the Guru's teaching deep in their minds, and it becomes the steady ground they stand on.
This one says peace is a gift from the One, not something you build by getting everything just right.
It makes a bold, comforting promise: sachai naa-ay dukh kab hee naahee — with the True Name, pain never takes hold. A thoughtful child might ask, "But good people still get sick and still lose people they love. So what does it mean?" It doesn't promise a life with nothing hard in it. It speaks of a certain kind of dukh, pain: the ache of feeling cut off and alone, as if the world were against you. That ache loses its grip when the Name lives in you. Hard things still come. But they don't land on a scared, lonely "me." They land on someone resting in the One, so they don't crush.
The key is the name given to the One: sukh-daata, the Giver of peace. Peace isn't something you make by arranging your life perfectly. It is given when you turn toward the Giver. So the teaching is simple: sukh-daata sayvan sukh paa-in — serve the Giver of peace, and you find peace. Chasing peace directly is like chasing your own shadow. Turn toward where it comes from, and it comes along with the friendship.
How does this peace stay, instead of being a good mood that fades? Gurmat man vasaavani-aa — the Guru's teaching, gurmat, comes to live in the mind. That is the difference between hearing something wise once and living by it. Think of a tent peg. Stuck in loosely, the tent flaps and falls in the first wind. Pushed deep into the ground, it holds through the storm. When the teaching goes deep, peace becomes the steady ground you stand on.
When hard things happen, what's the difference between facing them feeling alone and facing them feeling held by something larger?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI