Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
After wandering around so many places, knocking on so many doors, I finally circled all the way back and came home to my own house. And there it was — the very thing I had been searching for everywhere. Now I am full, completely content. Friends, the teacher showed me the One who is never afraid of anything.
This pauri tells the whole spiritual journey in one image: fir ghir apune garih meh aaiaa — "wandering and wandering, I came back around to my own home." The seeker went out, through countless other "houses" (other pursuits, other places to seek satisfaction), only to discover that what she sought was in her own home (garih) the entire time. This echoes the great reversal of the previous chapter (the One found ghar meh, within the home of the self) — a favorite teaching of Guru Arjan.
The result is tripat aghaae — satisfied and filled to the brim, the same fullness named earlier in this section: the wanting itself has stopped. And what was found is described beautifully: gur anbhau purakh dikhaariaa — "the Guru showed me the anbhau being." Anbhau means fearless, but also self-evident, directly experienced — beyond the reach of fear because beyond the reach of loss. The Guru did not give a new thing; the Guru showed (dikhaariaa) what was already home. Grace again works by revelation, not addition.
The teaching for a wandering mind is gentle and freeing: you can search the whole world for what will finally fill you, but the search keeps leading back to where you started — your own inmost home. The wandering is not wasted; it is how you learn that home was the answer. And the Guru is the one who, when you finally arrive back, points and says: there it is, it was here all along.
Have you ever looked everywhere for something only to find it right where you started? What did that teach you about searching?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI