Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
In the One's court, its singers gather — and as they sing its praises, the lotus of the heart opens wide and blooms.
Finding the Perfect One, their minds are caught up in pure joy. Their inner enemies are driven out, and their true friends rejoice. Those who serve the true teacher are shown the real path; sitting with the Word, they overcome death itself.
Speaking what can hardly be spoken, they are dressed in the beauty of the Word. Guru Nanak holds tight to the treasure of goodness — and meets the Beloved at last.
This Pauree gathers the joy of arrival, set in the image of the Court and its minstrels — Guru Nanak's beloved self-image as the dhadi, the bard who stands at the One's door and sings. In the Court of the Lord and Master, His minstrels dwell. And as they sing, something blossoms: singing the Praises of their True Lord, the lotuses of their hearts have blossomed forth. The lotus opening is one of the tradition's loveliest images for a heart unfolding into fullness — closed and folded in forgetting, it opens, petal by petal, in praise. Singing does to the heart what sunrise does to the lotus.
And the fruit of finding the One is named as ecstasy and cleansing: obtaining their Perfect Lord, their minds are transfixed with ecstasy. Their enemies have been driven out and subdued, and their friends are very pleased. The "enemies" here are best read as the inner ones — the passions, the ego, the bitterness — driven out at last; and the "friends" as the virtues, and the soul's own deepest self, set free to rejoice. When the inner enemies leave, the inner friends celebrate; the house of the self, long occupied by hostile tenants, is finally at peace.
The Pauree then names the practices and their fruit: those who serve the True Guru are shown the True Path; reflecting on the True Word of the Shabad, death is overcome. Service reveals the way; meditation on the Word conquers death itself — the same victory the Vaar has promised throughout. And a beautiful phrase for what such souls come to do: speaking the Unspoken Speech — akath katha, uttering the un-utterable, putting into song what is finally beyond words. They are adorned with the Word, and the Pauree ends on the simplest and most longed-for note of the whole raag: Nanak holds tight to the Treasure of Virtue, and meets with the Dear, Beloved Lord. After all the teaching — the smoke and the ashes, the rivers of fire, the insatiable desert, the four watches, the assayer's scale — it comes home here: hold tight to goodness, sing until the lotus opens, and meet the Beloved. That meeting, the soul's reunion with the One it came from and ached for, is the destination toward which every verse of the Vaar has been quietly pointing.
What 'song' or practice opens your heart like a lotus — and which inner 'enemies' most need driving out for your truer self to rejoice?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI