Faults covered, a dream-trap loosened, mountains moved in a moment.
The Arc
This shabad is about the disproportion between our troubles and the grace that meets them. It opens with the One covering the servant’s many faults, then the Pause reveals the world’s net as a passing dream. The verses escalate the obstacles — mountains of trouble, sorrow and sickness and calamity — only to shrink them against the One’s mercy, which moves them in an instant. It closes with the tenderest image: a child holding the hem of a parent’s robe.
Key Vocabulary
beeng — flaws, shortcomings — covered rather than counted
jaal / supna — the net / the dream — the world’s trap, which loosens when seen as passing
khin — an instant — the speed at which grace can move mountains of trouble
larh — the hem of the robe — the child-grip image of holding onto grace
Themes and Cross-Connections
The larh laa-ay image — being attached to the hem of the robe — recurs across Gurbani as a picture of grace that reaches down first. Guru Arjan pairs it here with the world-as-dream to show that what traps us is real enough to hurt but not real enough to hold.
For Raag Soohee
Soohee carries the intimacy of the trusting soul. The closing image — grasping the hem like a small child — is exactly the raag’s tenderness: not a hero conquering trouble, but a beloved being lifted and kept close.
Faults covered, a dream-trap loosened, mountains moved in a moment.
The Arc
This shabad is about the disproportion between our troubles and the grace that meets them. It opens with the One covering the servant’s many faults, then the Pause reveals the world’s net as a passing dream. The verses escalate the obstacles — mountains of trouble, sorrow and sickness and calamity — only to shrink them against the One’s mercy, which moves them in an instant. It closes with the tenderest image: a child holding the hem of a parent’s robe.
Key Vocabulary
Themes and Cross-Connections
The larh laa-ay image — being attached to the hem of the robe — recurs across Gurbani as a picture of grace that reaches down first. Guru Arjan pairs it here with the world-as-dream to show that what traps us is real enough to hurt but not real enough to hold.
For Raag Soohee
Soohee carries the intimacy of the trusting soul. The closing image — grasping the hem like a small child — is exactly the raag’s tenderness: not a hero conquering trouble, but a beloved being lifted and kept close.
Last updated: 2026-07-08