Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
The Husband is on the Bed, but the bride is asleep, and so she does not come to know Him.
While I am asleep, my Husband Lord is awake. Where can I go for advice?
The True Guru has led me to meet Him, and now I dwell in the Fear of God. O Nanak — His Love is always with me.
The closing pauri of this Ashtapadee is one of the most striking images in Guru Nanak's Siree Raag section: the Husband is on the Bed — present, available, waiting — and the bride is asleep. The divine is not absent. The soul is unconscious.
'Where can I go for advice?' — there is no external advice that resolves this. The True Guru leads the soul to the meeting; the Guru's service is precisely this: waking the sleeping bride. Having been led to the meeting, the bride now dwells in the divine's Fear-Reverence and carries His Love always. The resolution is complete — but only because the Guru awakened what the soul could not wake on its own.
What would it mean to wake up to something that has been present and available all along? Have you ever experienced that — finding something that was always there?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI