Third, He went to the Ganges, and a wonderful drama was played out there.
All were fascinated, gazing upon the Blessed Vision of the Saintly Guru's Darshan; no tax at all was imposed upon anyone.
No tax at all was collected, and the mouths of the tax collectors were sealed.
They said, "O brothers, what should we do? Who should we ask? Everyone is running after the True Guru."
The tax collectors were smart; they thought about it, and saw. They broke their cash-boxes and left.
Third, He went to the Ganges, and a wonderful drama was played out there. ||5||
# Raag Tukhaari, Shabad 10 — A Wonderful Play by the River
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Third, the Guru reached the Ganges, and there something wonderful and almost playful happened.
Everyone was so caught up in the sight of the Guru that not a single coin went to the tollmen.
Nothing landed in their collection boxes; the collectors just stood there, amazed and speechless.
"What are we supposed to do?" they said. "Who is there to charge? Everyone is following the Guru!"
Being clever, they thought it over, saw how things really were, broke open their empty boxes, got up, and walked away.
At the Ganges, something wonderful and playful unfolded.
Sursaree is the Ganges. The stanza calls what happened a kautak, a chalat: a wonder, a delightful play. The crowd is so spellbound by the Guru's daras that no toll gets collected at all; the collectors' mouths are, quite literally in the text, sealed (mohan mundan). Their honest bafflement is almost comic, and then they "get it": they think it over, see how things truly are, and cheerfully break open their empty cash-boxes and leave. The gentle humor carries a real point, that the world's little tolls and fees simply give way before genuine devotion.
Have you seen something so amazing that everyone around forgot what they were doing?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI