Pain, Doubt, and Fear Are Children of Misplaced Reliance
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Set down your clever plans, good people, and remember the One who actually runs things.
Anchor your hopes in the One - and watch pain, doubt and fear pack up and leave.
Stop leaning only on your own clever plans. Put your hope in the One, and pain, doubt and fear leave together.
Tajahu si-aanap sur janhu — give up your cleverness, good people. Si-aanap means cleverness, the planning mind. This speaks to us today as much as to people long ago. It is the part of us that thinks one more plan will finally make us safe. Think of checking the weather app ten times before a picnic, as if checking could stop the rain.
The answer is not to stop thinking. It is to move your anchor. Ayk aas har man rakhahu — keep your hope in the One alone, not in schemes and how they might turn out.
Then comes a promise. Naanak dookh bharam bha-o jaa-ay — pain, doubt and fear will go. Dookh is pain, bharam is doubt, and bha-o is fear. All three are children of trusting the wrong thing. When their parent leaves, they leave together.
The verses that follow take apart our leaning on people. Then they rebuild the whole body, sense by sense, around remembering the One.
When you feel afraid about the future, whose help are you counting on - and how solid is it?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI