Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Wanting things so badly that you can never be happy without them is a kind of pain that never lets go. But there is a lightness that comes when you stop clutching so tightly — a deep, settled peace.
Here is the surprising part: you do not have to leave your family or your ordinary life to find it. You can live right in the middle of your home, loving everyone, and still be free inside — untangled, at rest, held by something steady that sorrow cannot shake. Nanak says: such people stay close to the One always, joined from the very beginning.
Pauri 31 (Fourth Mehl). A householder-spirituality landmark: vichay girah udaas — detached in the very midst of the household. Desire-driven hope brings great pain (aasaa vich at dukh); becoming free of grasping (niraas) brings param sukh, supreme peace. Sorrow and separation (sog vijog) do not cling to the one at ease with the flow (har bhaanaa bhaaiaa). This is the Sikh answer to renunciation: freedom found inside family life, not by fleeing it.
Is there something you can love without gripping it so tightly it hurts?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI