There are some sabads we study, some we teach, and some that simply stay with us. They surface unexpectedly in moments of exhaustion, in grief, in quiet reflection, in the middle of ordinary days. They do not remain confined to the page. They become part of how we live, how we pray, how we make sense of ourselves before IkOankar (One Creative and Pervasive Force, 1Force, the One).

This sabad of Guru Nanak Sahib in Rag Bilaval, on Ang 795, is one of those for me.This sabad is read by many Sikhs as part of their daily nitnem as it forms a part of the collection of sabads called Sabad Hazare. 

I think of this sabad often. Certain lines return to me again and again, especially when I am feeling emotionally burdened, spiritually unsettled, or overwhelmed by the shape of the world. I do not return to this sabad because I have exhausted its meanings. I return to it because it continues to open something in me. It gives language to interior states that are often difficult to name. It steadies me. It humbles me. It comforts me.

More than anything, this sabad feels like an ardas. It is a prayer, a petition, a turning toward the Divine One with honesty and humility. Guru Nanak Sahib is not presenting an abstract theological system detached from life. He is speaking from within intimacy, vulnerability, and surrender. He is addressing IkOankar directly, entrusting pain, thought, longing, and understanding to the One who knows all things. That is part of what makes this sabad so powerful. It is deeply philosophical, yes, but it is also deeply personal. It is not only about truth. It is spoken from within a relationship.

The lines that grips me most are in the rahau:

ਮਨੁ ਬੇਧਿਆ ਦਇਆਲ ਸੇਤੀ ਮੇਰੀ ਮਾਈ ॥
ਕਉਣੁ ਜਾਣੈ ਪੀਰ ਪਰਾਈ ॥
ਹਮ ਨਾਹੀ ਚਿੰਤ ਪਰਾਈ ॥੧॥ ਰਹਾਉ ॥

My mind has been pierced by the Compassionate One, O my mother.
Who can know the pain of another?
I do not think of any other.1.Pause-Reflect.

Guru Nanak Sahib begins by calling out to his mother, which is such a familiar and affecting literary move in Gurbani. It brings tenderness and immediacy into the moment. It feels intimate, almost as though we are overhearing something rather than being formally instructed. And then comes the startling line: the Compassionate One has pierced me.

That juxtaposition has always stayed with me. What does it mean to be pierced by the compassionate One?

Piercing is not soft language. It is not the language of comfort in any easy sense. To be pierced is to be penetrated, opened, unsettled. It implies vulnerability, exposure, even pain. And yet the one who pierces is the Compassionate One. The Divine does not stand at a distance, offering sympathy from afar. The Divine reaches inward. The Divine breaks through our layers. The Divine enters the places we keep hidden, even from ourselves.

There is something profound here about the nature of compassion. Real compassion does not always flatter or soothe. Sometimes it interrupts. Sometimes it cuts through illusion. Sometimes it reaches the deepest and most guarded part of the self. To be pierced by the Compassionate One is, perhaps, to be known so fully that nothing false can remain intact. It is to be touched at the center of one’s being.

Then Guru Nanak Sahib continues: who can know another’s pain?

This line has followed me for years. I think of it often when I am going through emotionally difficult times. Human beings can care for one another deeply. We can love each other, accompany each other, and stand beside each other in beautiful ways. But even then, there is something about pain that remains interior. No one can fully inhabit another person’s sorrow. No one can completely know the ache another carries inside.

There is sadness in that realization, but there is also relief. If no one can truly know another’s pain, except Akal Purakh, the Timeless Being, then it is Akal Purakh with whom we can be most honest. It is to the Divine One that we can bring the pain beneath the explanation. The grief beneath the outward face. The fear we cannot easily put into words. The loneliness that sits behind speech. The Divine knows. Not in a distant or generalized sense, but intimately.

And so the final movement of the rahau line feels natural and powerful: I think of no other. Why should I turn elsewhere for the deepest recognition of what I carry, when the most profound and meaningful connection one can make is with the Divine One? Why scatter my heart in search of complete understanding from those who, however loving they may be, cannot fully know what only the One knows?

The opening lines of the sabad move in a different but related direction:

ਮਨੁ ਮੰਦਰੁ ਤਨੁ ਵੇਸ ਕਲੰਦਰੁ ਘਟ ਹੀ ਤੀਰਥਿ ਨਾਵਾ ॥
ਏਕੁ ਸਬਦੁ ਮੇਰੈ ਪ੍ਰਾਨਿ ਬਸਤੁ ਹੈ ਬਾਹੁੜਿ ਜਨਮਿ ਨ ਆਵਾ ॥੧॥

My mind is the temple, my body the robe of the seeker; within myself, at this sacred place, I bathe.
The One Sabad dwells within my life-breath, and I do not return again in birth.1.

Guru Nanak Sahib begins with the language of temple, hermit garb, and pilgrimage. But he turns all of it inward. The mind is the temple. The body is the robe of the seeker. The pilgrimage is not a journey to some distant geography. The bathing place is within the self.

This is one of the revolutions of Gurbani that never stops feeling radical. Guru Nanak Sahib does not dismiss the longing that pilgrimage represents. He reorients it. Holiness is not elsewhere. Sacred encounter is not dependent on distance traveled, sites visited, or rituals performed externally. The real journey is inward. The real truth is within.

I find that deeply compelling, especially in a world that constantly trains us to search outside ourselves for meaning. We seek validation in movement, achievement, recognition, possession, status, and community approval. We keep imagining that peace is somewhere else, waiting for us once we arrive at the next stage or the next destination. But Guru Nanak Sahib insists that the most important journey is not outward but inward. It is a profound introspection that leads us toward the Divine already present within.

And then comes the line that raises everything even further: the One Sabad abides in my life-breath, and so I do not return again in birth.

This is liberation described with remarkable intimacy. Freedom is not found in outward performance or religious identity alone. It comes when the Sabad is no longer merely recited or admired, but when it actually dwells in one’s breath, in the very animating principle of life. When only the Sabad rests in the heart, one is no longer bound in the same way to the cycle of coming and going, to the restlessness that defines ordinary existence. Guru Nanak Sahib is pointing us toward an interior freedom that cannot be manufactured through surface religiosity.

The second pada (stanza) is one of the places where the beauty of Guru Nanak Sahib’s understanding of the Divine shines with extraordinary clarity:

ਅਗਮ ਅਗੋਚਰ ਅਲਖ ਅਪਾਰਾ ਚਿੰਤਾ ਕਰਹੁ ਹਮਾਰੀ ॥
ਜਲਿ ਥਲਿ ਮਹੀਅਲਿ ਭਰਿਪੁਰਿ ਲੀਣਾ ਘਟਿ ਘਟਿ ਜੋਤਿ ਤੁਮੑਾਰੀ ॥੨॥

O Inaccessible, Unfathomable, Unseen, Infinite One, care for me.
In water, on land, and in the sky, You are fully pervading; Your light shines in each and every heart.2. 

The first line praises the Divine as inaccessible, unfathomable, unseen and infinite. This is the language of transcendence. IkOankar cannot be reduced to the senses, grasped by the intellect, or captured by form. The Divine exceeds comprehension.

And yet, in the very next line, Guru Nanak Sahib says that this very same Divine pervades all things: in the water, on the land, in the sky, in every heart. This is the language of immanence.

That interplay has always struck me as one of the most brilliant features of Guru Nanak Sahib’s thought. The Divine is not merely beyond creation, removed from it in untouched distance. Nor is the Divine simply collapsed into creation in a way that erases distinction. IkOankar is both immersed in creation and yet not bound by it. Present everywhere, and still beyond all containment. Creation discloses the Divine, but does not exhaust the Divine.

This has historically confused non-Sikhs trying to force Sikhi into categories that do not fit. But Gurbani is doing something more subtle and more powerful. It offers a vision of reality in which the One is radically beyond and radically near at once. Infinite, and yet intimately present in every being. Unseen, and yet a shining light in each and every heart. That is not confusion. That is the beauty of Guru Nanak Sahib’s insight.

As someone who has dedicated a great deal of life to scholarship, the beginning of the third pada feels especially humbling:

ਸਿਖ ਮਤਿ ਸਭ ਬੁਧਿ ਤੁਮੑਾਰੀ ਮੰਦਿਰ ਛਾਵਾ ਤੇਰੇ ॥
All teachings, all wisdom, all understanding are Yours; this sanctuary rests in Your shade. 

That line cuts through ego with startling precision. It is easy to become proud of knowledge. Easy to build an identity around education, training, reading, writing, and achievement. Easy to imagine that what we know belongs to us. That insight is self-made. That understanding is a possession. Guru Nanak Sahib refuses that illusion outright. Whatever is true, whatever instructs, whatever illuminates, belongs first to the One.

I find that line both sobering and freeing. It does not deny the value of study. It places study in its proper relation. Knowledge is not abolished, but humbled. Wisdom is not a personal trophy. It is grace. All the learning I have spent years pursuing, all the education I might feel proud of, is ultimately not mine in any final sense. Real wisdom comes only from the One.

And then Guru Nanak Sahib pivots from the intellectual to the physical. Even the sanctuaries we build, the places we gather, the structures we call ours, these too stand only in the shade of the Divine. Even our temples are not finally our own. There is something deeply grounding in that reminder. It unsettles the ego’s claims to possession and redirects everything back to IkOankar.

ਤੁਝ ਬਿਨੁ ਅਵਰੁ ਨ ਜਾਣਾ ਮੇਰੇ ਸਾਹਿਬਾ ਗੁਣ ਗਾਵਾ ਨਿਤ ਤੇਰੇ ॥੩॥
Without You, I know no other, my Sovereign; I sing Your virtues always.3.

This line feels especially moving to me because it completes the inward turn of the pada. After reminding us that all instruction, wisdom, and understanding belong to IkOankar, Guru Nanak Sahib says: “Without You, I know no other, my Sovereign; I sing Your virtues always.” There is something so direct and tender here. If everything I value, including knowledge, insight, and even shelter, comes only from the Divine, then there is no one else I can ultimately rely on in the same way. What remains, then, is praise. Not performance, but remembrance. Not possession, but gratitude. To know no other is to let one’s life be anchored in that relationship, and to sing the Divine virtues is to keep returning the mind and heart to that truth.

But it is the final pada that I find myself repeating most often when I am stressed, overwhelmed, or struggling to accept hukam (Divine command) and bhana (Divine will):

ਜੀਅ ਜੰਤ ਸਭਿ ਸਰਣਿ ਤੁਮੑਾਰੀ ਸਰਬ ਚਿੰਤ ਤੁਧੁ ਪਾਸੇ ॥
ਜੋ ਤੁਧੁ ਭਾਵੈ ਸੋਈ ਚੰਗਾ ਇਕ ਨਾਨਕ ਕੀ ਅਰਦਾਸੇ ॥੪॥੨॥

All beings and creatures are in Your refuge; all care and worries rest with You.
Whatever pleases You, that alone is good. This is Nanak’s one prayer.4.2.

Guru Nanak Sahib begins by saying that all beings are in Your refuge. This is already beautiful. Every creature, every life, everywhere, seeks sanctuary in the Divine One. But the pada goes even further. The relationship is not one-sided. We are not merely seeking protection. The Divine also cares for us. All anxieties, all concerns, all burdens are with You.

I return to that line often because it feels like an exhale. It does not mean that life becomes painless. It does not mean that injustice disappears or grief ceases to weigh on us. It means something quieter, and perhaps more difficult. It means that worry is not ultimate. The burden of carrying everything, fixing everything, understanding everything, does not belong to us alone. The Divine cares. The Divine holds. The Divine remains present even when our own capacity feels depleted.

Then comes the final line, which may be the most simple and most demanding prayer in the whole sabad: whatever pleases You, that alone is good.

This line has become its own kind of ardas for me. I find myself returning to it when life feels unfair, when circumstances are difficult, when acceptance feels far away. It is such a straightforward prayer, but it asks so much of the heart. Not that everything make sense immediately. Not that every moment feel easy. Not that suffering vanish. But that I be able to align myself with hukam. That I be content. That I be satisfied with what the Divine has given, even when I cannot yet understand it. Even when it feels like the hardest thing in the world.

There is tremendous spiritual maturity in that prayer. It is not resignation. It is trust. It is not passivity. It is surrender rooted in relationship. It is the desire to say, with honesty, that what You will is good, even when my own vision is limited.

That, perhaps, is why this sabad continues to return to me. It is not merely beautiful. It is livable. It gives me language when I cannot find my own. It reminds me that the deepest sanctuary is within, that the deepest pain is known by the Divine, that wisdom is not mine, and that all beings live under the care of IkOankar. Above all, it leaves me with a final prayer I am still learning how to mean with my whole being:

Whatever pleases You, that alone is good.