Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
The one who catches their running, racing mind and holds it steady and still reaches the highest state — by the Guru's grace. The True Teacher Himself joins such a person to the One, and meeting the Beloved, they find deep peace.
After the wandering pilgrim of Pauri4 — racing across foreign lands and finding nothing — this stanza turns the wandering inward and names the real journey. Dhaavat raakhai thaak rahaae — the one who catches the running mind and holds it still. The word dhaavat means running, racing, galloping — the mind that never stops sprinting from thought to thought, want to want, the off-beat wandering we've met throughout this Mehl. The pilgrim of the last verse wandered with his feet; but the deeper wandering is the mind's, and that's the one that has to be stilled.
Notice the beautiful contrast the song has set up: outer wandering (pilgrimage, ritual, racing around the world) gets you nowhere; but stilling the inner wandering gets you everything — param pad, the supreme state, the highest condition there is. The journey that matters isn't across geography; it's the bringing-home of a runaway mind. And this is hard — anyone who has tried to quiet their thoughts for even a minute knows the mind bolts like a startled horse. So how is it done?
Crucially, the stanza doesn't say "force the mind still by sheer willpower." It says gur parsaadi param pad paae — the supreme state comes by the Guru's grace. The stilling of the racing mind isn't a violent act of self-control (which would just be more agitation, the ego straining against itself). It comes as grace — the way a frightened horse calms not when you wrestle it but when a trusted presence quiets it. And the final lines make the grace personal and tender: satgur aape mel milaae — the True Guru Himself does the uniting — and mil preetam sukh paavnia — meeting the Beloved, peace is found. There's that word preetam, Beloved — the language of Raag Maajh, the soul meeting the One it has ached for. So the still mind isn't the goal in itself; it's the clearing that finally lets the meeting happen. The racing mind was the dust storm hiding the Beloved who was right there. Still the running (by grace), and the dust settles, and there — meeting the Beloved — is peace. The whole restless search ends not by running farther but by finally, gracefully, coming to rest.
When your mind is racing, what actually helps it settle — forcing it, or something gentler? What does the world look like once it's calm?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI