The Deathless One is everywhere, unbound by birth, family, or fear, and the same One sits enthroned inside your own body.
The Arc
A fifteen-verse Solhe. It opens with the omnipresent, deathless, familyless One, moves through the cool calm of the Word and the fourth state beyond the world's three moods, praises the company of the good, pictures the body as a fortress with the True One enthroned within, and closes with the mastery of the five inner pulls and the Name as the friend who stays to the very end.
Key Vocabulary
Akaal Purakh - the Deathless Being
niraalam - free and detached even while pervading all
chautha ghar - the fourth, still state beyond the three moods (gunas)
sahaj - natural ease
panch - the five restless pulls (wanting, anger, greed, clinging, pride)
ant sakhaa-ee - the friend at the end
Themes and Cross-Connections
The body-fortress and inner throne set the keynote of Nanak's Maaroo Solhe: the turn from any outer battle to inner sovereignty. Death is disarmed again and again, made a small mouthful, made a friend, rather than feared.
For Raag Maaroo
Maaroo faces mortality directly. Guru Nanak answers not with dread but with a Deathless One already enthroned within, so the only battle left is the gentle mastery of one's own heart.
Translation Notes
Made death and birth a bite of food (v4) is rendered as endings made small and unfrightening. Subdues the five demons and becomes the Lord's foot-soldier (v14) is rendered as inner mastery and a brave helper, not literal war. The denial of caste and lineage (v2) is foregrounded as an equality note. Swim across the river, friend at the end (v15) is kept as gentle homecoming. The cosmology (three gunas and the fourth state, the fourteen realms, the sun and moon as lamps) is rendered with wonder for children.
The Deathless One is everywhere, unbound by birth, family, or fear, and the same One sits enthroned inside your own body.
The Arc
A fifteen-verse Solhe. It opens with the omnipresent, deathless, familyless One, moves through the cool calm of the Word and the fourth state beyond the world's three moods, praises the company of the good, pictures the body as a fortress with the True One enthroned within, and closes with the mastery of the five inner pulls and the Name as the friend who stays to the very end.
Key Vocabulary
Themes and Cross-Connections
The body-fortress and inner throne set the keynote of Nanak's Maaroo Solhe: the turn from any outer battle to inner sovereignty. Death is disarmed again and again, made a small mouthful, made a friend, rather than feared.
For Raag Maaroo
Maaroo faces mortality directly. Guru Nanak answers not with dread but with a Deathless One already enthroned within, so the only battle left is the gentle mastery of one's own heart.
Translation Notes
Made death and birth a bite of food (v4) is rendered as endings made small and unfrightening. Subdues the five demons and becomes the Lord's foot-soldier (v14) is rendered as inner mastery and a brave helper, not literal war. The denial of caste and lineage (v2) is foregrounded as an equality note. Swim across the river, friend at the end (v15) is kept as gentle homecoming. The cosmology (three gunas and the fourth state, the fourteen realms, the sun and moon as lamps) is rendered with wonder for children.