Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
I am looking for my One — my closest, most intimate friend. Show me the way, dear friends; I have been searching everywhere.
The kind true teacher showed me the path, and I found the One. Through the Name, I melt into the Name.
This stanza is the soul's search, and the help it finds. I seek my Lord, Har, Har, my Intimate, my Best Friend. The One sought is named, again, in the warmest terms — intimate, best friend — for these shabads never let the infinite One become cold or distant; it is always the dearest friend the soul is aching to find. And the search is honest and a little desperate: Show me the way, Dear Saints; I am searching all over for Him. The soul admits it does not know the way on its own and turns, as always, to the Saints for direction.
And the way is shown — gently. The Kind and Compassionate True Guru has shown me the Way, and I have found the Lord. Notice the adjectives for the Guru: kind, compassionate. The one who shows the searching soul the way does so not sternly but with tenderness, meeting the soul's desperate searching with compassion. And the finding ends, as these shabads love to end, in merger: through the Name of the Lord, I am absorbed in the Naam. The soul that searched everywhere finds the One through the kind Guru, and dissolves into the Name it sought. The whole arc — searching, asking the Saints, being shown the way by the compassionate Guru, and melting into the Name — is the journey of these shabads in miniature, and its keynote is kindness: a soul helped home not by a demanding master but by a compassionate guide.
When you've been 'searching all over' for something essential, has kindness or harshness been more likely to actually show you the way?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI