Your body is a patchwork of threads, stitched with bones for needles, propped up on a pillar of water. So why be proud of it? It is a coat you get to wear for a few days. You can smear on ashes, sit very still, wear the big earrings, and still carry "mine" and "yours" inside. You can blow the horn and still feel sad. You can sit in the perfect pose while your mind keeps darting off. Asking everyone else for bread never fills you up. Wear the Naam as your coat and your robe, and you stand steady. Remember like that, and you find the Guru in this life. At the centre, the Rahao: remember your Master day and night, because this body-coat lasts only a few days.
Key Vocabulary
thiglee / astee — the body's patched threads and bones.
garbeh — pride, gently checked.
khinthaa — the patched coat; the body on loan.
bibhoot / mundraa — ashes and earrings; the ascetic's outer marks.
gur gorakh — Gorakh (Gorakhnath), the yogis' revered guru.
asthir — steady, stable; the fruit of wearing the Name.
Themes and Cross-Connections
This shabad speaks straight to the raag's own audience — the yogis — taking up their ashes, earrings, horn, and postures one by one. Its argument is the tradition's steady refrain: the outer form is empty without the inner reality. The Name, worn like a coat, is what finally makes a restless heart asthir, steady.
For Raag Raamkalee
Here the raag of yogis becomes a loving, direct conversation with them: keep the coat if you like, but wear the Name beneath it, and find in this very life the steadiness the postures could never give.
Hukumnama
Subject: Remember the One day and night Preview: A patchwork body, a coat worn for a few days, ashes and earrings, a horn, a restless pose, a robe of Naam.
Today: Your body is a patchwork of threads, stitched with bones for needles, propped up on a pillar of water. So why be proud of it? It is a coat you get to wear for a few days. You can smear on ashes, sit very still, wear the big earrings, and still carry "mine" and "yours" inside. You can blow the horn and still feel sad. You can sit in the perfect pose while your mind keeps darting off. Asking everyone else for bread never fills you up. Wear the Naam as your coat and your robe, and you stand steady. Remember like that, and you find the Guru in this life.
Remember the One day and night; this body-coat lasts only a few days.
For today: When you wake up and again before you sleep, say thank you to the One.
Wear the Naam for a coat, and you stand steady.
The Arc
Your body is a patchwork of threads, stitched with bones for needles, propped up on a pillar of water. So why be proud of it? It is a coat you get to wear for a few days. You can smear on ashes, sit very still, wear the big earrings, and still carry "mine" and "yours" inside. You can blow the horn and still feel sad. You can sit in the perfect pose while your mind keeps darting off. Asking everyone else for bread never fills you up. Wear the Naam as your coat and your robe, and you stand steady. Remember like that, and you find the Guru in this life. At the centre, the Rahao: remember your Master day and night, because this body-coat lasts only a few days.
Key Vocabulary
Themes and Cross-Connections
This shabad speaks straight to the raag's own audience — the yogis — taking up their ashes, earrings, horn, and postures one by one. Its argument is the tradition's steady refrain: the outer form is empty without the inner reality. The Name, worn like a coat, is what finally makes a restless heart asthir, steady.
For Raag Raamkalee
Here the raag of yogis becomes a loving, direct conversation with them: keep the coat if you like, but wear the Name beneath it, and find in this very life the steadiness the postures could never give.
Hukumnama
Subject: Remember the One day and night Preview: A patchwork body, a coat worn for a few days, ashes and earrings, a horn, a restless pose, a robe of Naam.
Today: Your body is a patchwork of threads, stitched with bones for needles, propped up on a pillar of water. So why be proud of it? It is a coat you get to wear for a few days. You can smear on ashes, sit very still, wear the big earrings, and still carry "mine" and "yours" inside. You can blow the horn and still feel sad. You can sit in the perfect pose while your mind keeps darting off. Asking everyone else for bread never fills you up. Wear the Naam as your coat and your robe, and you stand steady. Remember like that, and you find the Guru in this life.
Remember the One day and night; this body-coat lasts only a few days.
For today: When you wake up and again before you sleep, say thank you to the One.