Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
O dear ones — the terrifying world-ocean is so difficult to cross. I am terrified.
But the Perfect True Guru, in His pleasure, has met with me. Through the Name of the Lord — I am saved.
Dhann je-o ih bhavsaagar, bhujang tarna — O dear ones, this terrifying world-ocean (bhavsaagar — the ocean of existence, the sea of birth and death), with its serpents (bhujang), is so difficult to cross. The shift from mountain to ocean is the shift from Pauri 0 to Pauri 1: both images point to the same existential terror, each from a different angle. The ocean is bottomless, filled with serpents of Maya and ego, and seemingly uncrossable.
Pooran satgur bhaanai mil-aa, har naavai satgur tarnaa — the Perfect True Guru, in His pleasure (bhaanai — according to His will, in His pleasure), has met with me; through the Name of the Lord, the True Guru has enabled me to cross. The structure is essential: the meeting with the Guru is by His pleasure, not by the seeker's effort. The Guru meets you. And through the Name — the same Name that was described as piercing the mind in Shabad 113, the same Name that is the pure portable wealth — the crossing is made.
The rahao holds the tension: the ocean is genuinely terrifying, the terror is genuine (dhiraa — I am terrified), and the Guru genuinely saves. Not by eliminating the terror in advance but by meeting you in it and carrying you through it with the Name.
Have you ever been in a situation that felt impossible until someone showed up and helped — and what made their help different from what you could do alone?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI