No Enemy, No Stranger
How does the heart change when it stops keeping score?
How does the heart change when it stops keeping score?
It’s strange how easily the heat creeps in. Sometimes, it starts with a celebration that doesn’t include everyone. A friend’s success. A sibling’s praise. A colleague’s joy. There’s a quiet wince, a small clench, a pulse of something uninvited. A shadow that whispers: Why not me?
It doesn’t announce itself as jealousy or rivalry—just a vague unease. A dissonance. And yet, before long, it lives in the body like a slow burn.
The mind rehearses tiny slights. Conversations are parsed for subtext. Praise for others sounds like silence toward oneself. A quiet fire begins to frame the world in fragments: this is theirs, not mine. That is theirs, not meant for me.
But sometimes, without even noticing, the fire softens. There is a moment—gentle and unspectacular—where something different takes root.
A shared stillness. A presence. A gathering of those who are not trying to outshine one another but sit in the warmth of something larger. And suddenly, the edges blur. The burn fades.
This sabad from Guru Arjan Sahib in Raag Kaanraa speaks from such a moment. It begins not in instruction but in realization: a before and after. A life once shaped by comparison and quiet rivalry, and a life now changed—because something in the heart has turned.
This is not a poem of perfection. It is a poem of transformation. Of what happens when the company we keep is no longer our own mind’s torment, but the sangat of those who rest in the rhythm of the One. It is not about becoming flawless—it’s about being reoriented, re-seen, re-met.
ਕਾਨੜਾ ਮਹਲਾ ੫ ॥
kānṛā mehlā 5
Raag Kaanraa, Fifth Embodiment (Guru Arjan Sahib)
This sabad appears in Raag Kaanraa, a musical mode often evoking deep yearning and a quiet, mature serenity. Guru Arjan Sahib—master of both inner poise and poetic precision—brings us into a space where emotional transformation is neither grand nor immediate, but lived.
ਬਿਸਰਿ ਗਈ ਸਭ ਤਾਤਿ ਪਰਾਈ ॥
bisar gaī sabh tāṯ parāī
All burning jealousy of others has been forgotten.
The line opens not with resolve, but with a soft astonishment. Forgetting or ਬਿਸਰਿ ਗਈ holds a tenderness: this fire wasn’t extinguished with force. It drifted away, as if unneeded. ਤਾਤਿ ਪਰਾਈ—the burn of seeing another’s joy and feeling pain—has quietly left. This isn’t suppression. It is release. Not because the world has changed, but because something in perception has.
ਜਬ ਤੇ ਸਾਧਸੰਗਤਿ ਮੋਹਿ ਪਾਈ ॥੧॥ ਰਹਾਉ ॥
jab ṯe sāḏẖsangaṯ mohi pāī
Ever since I received the company of the seekers.
The turning point is not a technique, but a relationship. The sadhsangat—not merely a congregation, but a community oriented toward Wisdom—becomes the place where inner rivalry dissolves. When surrounded by those who see through the lens of Oneness, the self’s need to compete begins to loosen. The refrain reminds us: this is the shift. Dissonance becomes resonance in the presence of those attuned to the Sabad.
ਨਾ ਕੋ ਬੈਰੀ ਨਹੀ ਬਿਗਾਨਾ ਸਗਲ ਸੰਗਿ ਹਮ ਕਉ ਬਨਿ ਆਈ ॥੧॥
nā ko bairī nahī bigānā sagal sang ham ka-o ban ā-ī
No one is my enemy, no one is a stranger; I feel connected with all.
This line is not ideological—it is experiential. The shift is not that enemies are forgiven or strangers understood; it is that the very perception of enmity and estrangement dissolves. Not because others have changed, but because the self has been reframed. The One perceived in all begins to breathe through relationships, making them less about threat or distance, and more about kinship.
ਜੋ ਪ੍ਰਭ ਕੀਨੋ ਸੋ ਭਲ ਮਾਨਿਓ ਏਹ ਸੁਮਤਿ ਸਾਧੂ ਤੇ ਪਾਈ ॥੨॥
jo parabẖ kīno so bẖal māni-o eh sumaṯ sāḏẖū ṯe pā-ī
Whatever the Divine does, I now accept as good; this wisdom I’ve received from the seekers.
This is not passive acceptance—it is the kind of deep alignment that comes when resistance softens. Not everything feels good, but it is no longer judged through the lens of lack. The word ਸੁਮਤਿ, meaning good sense or right understanding, signals not a moralizing intellect, but a spacious seeing: to trust the unfolding, even when it disrupts. And that clarity arises not from isolation, but from being among those rooted in Sabad.
ਸਭ ਮਹਿ ਰਵਿ ਰਹਿਆ ਪ੍ਰਭੁ ਏਕੈ ਪੇਖਿ ਪੇਖਿ ਨਾਨਕ ਬਿਗਸਾਈ ॥੩॥੮॥
sabh meh rav rahi-ā parabẖ ekai pekẖ pekẖ Nānak bigsā-ī
The One pervades all; seeing this again and again, Nanak blossoms.
This closing image is vibrant and alive. ਬਿਗਸਾਈ or blossoming is not a metaphor of achievement—it’s of emergence. As the awareness of the One becomes more constant, Nanak does not transcend the world—he rejoices within it. To “see again and again” is to return, not to grasp. And this returning brings joy, not effort.
There are moments when the fire returns. Despite all effort, the burn of comparison, the tightness of feeling left out, the subtle urge to guard or compete—it comes back. And perhaps that’s part of the path. Not to avoid the fire entirely, but to notice when it flares. To recognize when presence has been replaced by performance.
But the sabad doesn’t demand perfection. It offers a direction.
It shows us what becomes possible when our surroundings reflect Sabad, when our company breathes in rhythm with Oneness. In such spaces, the need to distinguish self from other as rival or stranger begins to fade. The world softens. Even the moments that feel unfair or difficult begin to seem not targeted, but part of a larger unfolding.
And so, a quiet invitation: What would happen if today—even for a few moments—we sat with those who remind us of the One in all? Not to be improved, but to be embraced. Not to become better, but to become less divided.
Let that be the pause in the fire. Feel it in the loosening jaw, the exhale of the shoulders, the warmth behind the eyes when comparison fades. And let that be enough.
Listen to this sabad sung by Kaurs from the SGGS Gurmat Sangeet Academy
Bhai Balbir Singh (in Rag Kanara)
Bhai Gurmail Singh
Bhai Harjinder Singh
Bhai Harcharan Singh Khalsa