Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
The Lord's Name is the most excellent thing there is — the One who made everything, who lives in every single heart.
Meditate on that Lord. There is no other. Without Him, there is nothing.
Those who get attached to the world's illusions end up crying when they have to leave it all behind. Because nothing in the world can accompany you to the end.
Nanak meditates on the Lord's Name. The Lord is the one companion who stays with you all the way — not just through this life but beyond it.
Vanajaaraa — the Merchant form
Vanajaaraa means the wandering merchant, the trader who travels from place to place buying and selling. Guru Ram Das uses this figure — the merchant on the road with his goods — as the central metaphor for this composition, which opens the long Vaar of Siree Raag.
The refrain (rahao) of the Vanajaaraa will keep returning with an address: vańjāriā mitrā — "O my merchant friend." Every Gurmukh is a merchant on a journey. The question is: what are you carrying, and where are you going?
"His only Companion in the end"
Har ant sakhā'ī ho'e — "the Lord becomes his Companion in the end." This is the teaching's most basic claim. Every other companion — wealth, status, family, body, reputation — stays behind when the soul departs. The Lord alone travels with the soul. This is not an abstract theology. It is a practical statement about what to invest in during the journey.
The world calls this pessimism. Guru Ram Das calls it the most rational calculation available to a merchant: know which cargo actually arrives with you at the final destination, and load that cargo.
*What do you think you would most regret not having done when it was time to leave? And is that regret pointing you toward something real?*
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI