The One you seek does not live far away in a temple; it keeps a home in the highest room of your own body.
The Arc
This is the first of a long run of Solhe (sixteen-verse hymns) by Guru Nanak, and it is marked 'Dakhanee', a southern-dialect composition. It opens by locating the divine within the body-fortress, in the hidden Tenth Gate, and then widens outward: the elements, the earth as a home for good living, all of nature performing quiet worship, the settled senses, the inner light that needs no sun, and the unstruck music of the fearless One. It closes with the One who is behind every beginning and ending, and a simple prayer just to glimpse that One.
Key Vocabulary
Dakhanee: a southern dialect; noted here because it flavors the whole hymn.
Tenth Gate (dasvaa duaar): the inner doorway of awareness, beyond the nine bodily openings.
Anhad naad: the unstruck sound-current, the inner music that plays with no instrument.
Sahj: natural, effortless ease.
Hukam: rendered throughout as the flow of existence.
Themes and Cross-Connections
The body-as-fortress and the Tenth Gate return across this Solhe block (see B00C2238). The picture of all nature offering worship, and of the inner light beyond sun and moon, connects to Aartee imagery elsewhere in Gurbani. The refrain of the One as maker, keeper, and gentle re-uniter runs through the whole hymn.
For Raag Maaroo
Maaroo is the raag of the battlefield and of facing death, and these Solhe carry that weight. Here Guru Nanak answers it by turning attention inward and upward, to the changeless home within, so that endings are met not with dread but as part of a rhythm of renewal.
Translation Notes
'Dakhanee' (southern dialect) is noted in the opening pauri per the source heading.
Pauri 14: 'maar jeevaaidaa' (kills and revives) is softened to 'turns endings into new beginnings', keeping the teaching of renewal while removing any note of dread, in keeping with the wellbeing care due to Maaroo.
Hukam is rendered as 'the flow of existence'; grace (karam) is presented as freely given, not earned.
The One you seek does not live far away in a temple; it keeps a home in the highest room of your own body.
The Arc
This is the first of a long run of Solhe (sixteen-verse hymns) by Guru Nanak, and it is marked 'Dakhanee', a southern-dialect composition. It opens by locating the divine within the body-fortress, in the hidden Tenth Gate, and then widens outward: the elements, the earth as a home for good living, all of nature performing quiet worship, the settled senses, the inner light that needs no sun, and the unstruck music of the fearless One. It closes with the One who is behind every beginning and ending, and a simple prayer just to glimpse that One.
Key Vocabulary
Themes and Cross-Connections
The body-as-fortress and the Tenth Gate return across this Solhe block (see B00C2238). The picture of all nature offering worship, and of the inner light beyond sun and moon, connects to Aartee imagery elsewhere in Gurbani. The refrain of the One as maker, keeper, and gentle re-uniter runs through the whole hymn.
For Raag Maaroo
Maaroo is the raag of the battlefield and of facing death, and these Solhe carry that weight. Here Guru Nanak answers it by turning attention inward and upward, to the changeless home within, so that endings are met not with dread but as part of a rhythm of renewal.
Translation Notes