Picture a yogi's things: a small hut, a horn, a flute, a harp, a seat in a holy city. Now find each one inside you. Your heart is the hut, and the One lives there. A wide-awake mind is the horn. Your breathing is the harp, and it plays the Word. Your mind is a king, and your senses are its people, so rule them fairly. Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva are faces of one Maker. Clinging to the passing world is a rough sea. The Word carries you across, and your family too. Arguing and showing off don't help. A steady mind does. In the end, the One forgives and draws you close. At the centre, the Rahao: through the Word, those turned to the Guru have carried so many to safety.
Key Vocabulary
Marhi — the monastery/hut; here, the heart as the true monastery.
Singhi / bayn / kinguri — the Yogi's horn, flute, and harp, reinterpreted as awareness and the Word.
Rav sas — sun and moon: the two breath-channels, imaged as harp-strings.
Aoudhoo — the true hermit — redefined as the Gurmukh.
Jeevat moo-aa — 'dead while alive': living liberation, freedom from ego's grip.
Chautha pad — the fourth state, beyond the three qualities.
Gurmukh jog — the yoga of self-knowledge that opens onto the One.
Themes and Cross-Connections
The hymn's method is sustained inward reinterpretation: every external Yogic instrument and posture is honored and then relocated to the heart. Its political image — the mind as a king who governs the senses with justice — sits beside its communal one — the awakened heart carries its whole family across. And its theology stays radically one: three gods, one Maker; much effort, one grace.
For Raag Raamkalee
This is the keystone of Raamkalee's Yogic dialogue — the place where Guru Nanak most completely translates the language of yoga into the language of the Word and the Name.
The Arc
Picture a yogi's things: a small hut, a horn, a flute, a harp, a seat in a holy city. Now find each one inside you. Your heart is the hut, and the One lives there. A wide-awake mind is the horn. Your breathing is the harp, and it plays the Word. Your mind is a king, and your senses are its people, so rule them fairly. Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva are faces of one Maker. Clinging to the passing world is a rough sea. The Word carries you across, and your family too. Arguing and showing off don't help. A steady mind does. In the end, the One forgives and draws you close. At the centre, the Rahao: through the Word, those turned to the Guru have carried so many to safety.
Key Vocabulary
Themes and Cross-Connections
The hymn's method is sustained inward reinterpretation: every external Yogic instrument and posture is honored and then relocated to the heart. Its political image — the mind as a king who governs the senses with justice — sits beside its communal one — the awakened heart carries its whole family across. And its theology stays radically one: three gods, one Maker; much effort, one grace.
For Raag Raamkalee
This is the keystone of Raamkalee's Yogic dialogue — the place where Guru Nanak most completely translates the language of yoga into the language of the Word and the Name.