Someone Else’s Hands
Who are you waiting for?
At some point, probably in the middle of something that requires a decision you don’t feel equipped to make, the wish arrives. Not loudly. Quietly.
If someone could just tell me what to do.
You don’t say it out loud. You might not even fully think it. But the body knows. There is a particular tiredness that isn’t physical, the kind that comes from being the one who must figure it out, again, with no one above you in the chain who actually has this handled. The ones above you are also figuring it out. You worked that out some time ago, and then tried to un-work it out, because it wasn’t useful.
So you look around. At the colleague who seems to operate without the vertigo you carry. At the mentor who sounds certain. At the friend who appears to have arrived somewhere you haven’t yet. Some part of you is not just observing them. Some part of you is hoping they will reach over and carry something you have been carrying alone.
The wish takes many forms. Sometimes it is wanting someone to decide. Sometimes it is wanting someone to say: you’re going to be alright. Sometimes it is wanting someone to simply arrive, the way help arrives in the stories that end well. You pick up the phone. You arrange another conversation. You scan the room for whoever has the look of a person who knows.
What it does not do is settle.
Guru Arjan Sahib asks the same question from the other side, not as a wish, but as a recognition that has already cleared. The sabad appears at Ang 608 of the Guru Granth Sahib. Set in Rag Sorath, it moves in a register of dignified inquiry. Not anxious searching, but the quality of a seeker who already senses what it is looking for. Its mood holds both earnest question and the quiet that answers it, neither mournful nor triumphant. For a sabad that opens with “from whom shall I beg?” and ends with a child resting in a father’s arms, Sorath is precisely the right container. It has room for the whole arc.
Guru Arjan Sahib, the fifth sovereign in the line of the Gurus, was one who held an enormous amount. He compiled the Guru Granth Sahib. He oversaw the building of the Harmandir Sahib in Amritsar. He tended a sangat of hundreds of thousands. This is worth holding alongside the sabad’s posture: all of that from the same voice that arrives, in the final stanza, at a child asking to be held. Not despite those responsibilities. Because of the orientation that made them possible.
ਸੋਰਠਿ ਮਹਲਾ ੫ ਘਰੁ ੧ ਤਿਤੁਕੇ
Soraṭh(i) mahalā 5 ghar(u) 1 tituke.
Rag Sorath, Fifth Sovereign, first house, three-line verses.
ੴ ਸਤਿਗੁਰ ਪ੍ਰਸਾਦਿ ॥
IkOankar satigur(u) parsād(i).
The One who pervades and sustains all of existence is realized through the gift of receptivity - opened by the True Guru.
ਕਿਸ ਹਉ ਜਾਚੀ ਕਿਸ ਆਰਾਧੀ ਜਾ ਸਭੁ ਕੋ ਕੀਤਾ ਹੋਸੀ ॥
Kis hau jācī kis ārādhī jā sabh(u) ko kītā hosī.
From whom shall I beg, whom shall I worship, when every being is already the One’s own creation?
ਜੋ ਜੋ ਦੀਸੈ ਵਡਾ ਵਡੇਰਾ ਸੋ ਸੋ ਖਾਕੂ ਰਲਸੀ ॥
Jo jo dīsai vaḍā vaḍerā so so khākū ralsī.
Whoever appears great and powerful will, each one, mix into dust.
ਨਿਰਭਉ ਨਿਰੰਕਾਰੁ ਭਵ ਖੰਡਨੁ ਸਭਿ ਸੁਖ ਨਵ ਨਿਧਿ ਦੇਸੀ ॥੧॥
Nirbhau nirankār(u) bhav khaṇḍan(u) sabh(i) sukh nav nidh(i) desī. 1.
The Fearless One, the Formless One, the ender of the cycle of becoming: that One gives all comforts and the nine treasures. 1.
The opening padh, or verse, does something quietly devastating to the logic of seeking. It does not argue against turning to other people. It simply points to a fact: every person you might turn to, every impressive figure, every mentor or authority who appears to have what you need, they are all the One’s own making. Whatever they carry, they did not originate it. To seek from them as though they were the source is to mistake the vessel for what fills it.
The word dīsai does careful work here. It means “appears,” not “is.” Greatness, as it presents itself in the world, is a display. This is not cynicism; it is cosmology. Everything finite moves toward dissolution. Khākū ralsī names what happens to all of it: mixing into dust. The colleague who seems to have it together, the mentor’s certainty, the institution that looks permanent, all of it is borrowed from the same source, all of it returning. If you place your hope for rescue in something that will become dust, the rescue will also become dust. This is not a warning. It is information about where the weight can actually be set down.
The third line opens toward the one who does not dissolve. Nirbhau names the One who is without fear; nirankār(u) names the One who is without form. Both are relational descriptions: the One who is without fear is also the source of fearlessness. Bhav khaṇḍan(u) names the ender of bhav itself, the cycle of wanting and losing, seeking and not finding. And this same One gives sabh(i) sukh, all comforts, and nav nidh(i), the nine treasures of the world’s fullness. Not partial provision. All of it. The person scanning the room is not looking for too much. They are looking in the wrong direction.
ਹਰਿ ਜੀਉ ਤੇਰੀ ਦਾਤੀ ਰਾਜਾ ॥
Har(i) jīu terī dātī rājā.
O Hari, the permeating, life-renewing presence, I am filled by Your gifts alone.
ਮਾਣਸੁ ਬਪੁੜਾ ਕਿਆ ਸਾਲਾਹੀ ਕਿਆ ਤਿਸ ਕਾ ਮੁਹਤਾਜਾ ॥ ਰਹਾਉ ॥
Māṇas(u) bapuṛā kiā sālāhī kiā tis kā muhtājā. Rahāu.
What praise of a helpless human? What need to depend on them? Pause.
This is the rahao, the still point on which the sabad turns. Bapuṛā means helpless, limited, genuinely finite. Not an insult. A description. The person who appears to have what you need is also a bapuṛā māṇas, also without a source of their own, also dependent, also passing. To organize your interior life around their approval or their decision is to light your house with a lamp that carries no oil of its own.
Rājā carries the weight of satiation, of being filled now, by gifts already given. Not “I will be filled” as a future promise. The orientation the sabad points toward is not a destination. It is a recognition of what is already the case.
You cannot reach, with the threat of loss, a mind that has taken up residence in what cannot be lost.
ਜਿਨਿ ਹਰਿ ਧਿਆਇਆ ਸਭੁ ਕਿਛੁ ਤਿਸ ਕਾ ਤਿਸ ਕੀ ਭੂਖ ਗਵਾਈ ॥
Jin(i) har(i) dhiāiā sabh(u) kichh(u) tis kā tis kī bhūkh gavāī.
Whoever has immersed in Hari: everything becomes theirs, and their hunger is removed.
ਐਸਾ ਧਨੁ ਦੀਆ ਸੁਖਦਾਤੈ ਨਿਖੁਟਿ ਨ ਕਬ ਹੀ ਜਾਈ ॥
Aisā dhan(u) dīā sukhdātai nikhuṭ(i) na kab hī jāī.
Such is the wealth given by the Giver of peace: it is never, at any time, exhausted.
ਅਨਦੁ ਭਇਆ ਸੁਖ ਸਹਜਿ ਸਮਾਣੇ ਸਤਿਗੁਰਿ ਮੇਲਿ ਮਿਲਾਈ ॥੨॥
Anad(u) bhaīā sukh sahaj(i) samāṇe satigur(i) mel(i) milāī. 2.
Bliss arose; peace settled into sahaj when the True Guru joined the meeting. 2.
Dhiāiā describes immersion: attention genuinely turned toward, not recited as formula but inhabited. When that happens, sabh(u) kichh(u) tis kā, everything becomes theirs. This is not a transaction. It is a description of what actually changes. When the source of satisfaction is inexhaustible, nothing finite threatens it. When the hunger is gone, bhūkh gavāī, the scrambling stops. Not because everything is suddenly provided in the way the anxious mind wanted, but because the ground on which the anxiety was standing has shifted.
Sukhdātai names the Giver of sukh, of peace that does not depend on circumstances remaining arranged. Nikhuṭ(i) na kab hī means never, at any time, exhausted. The people we look to for rescue have finite stores. They can be depleted. They can change. They can disappoint, not from any failure of character, but from the simple fact of what they are. Sahaj Avastha, the state of sahaj, is the highest state of spiritual development in Sikh teaching: a way of being no longer at war with itself. Not achieved through effort alone, but settled into through alignment. When that meeting is real, anad(u) bhaīā, bliss simply arose. Not manufactured. Not pursued. Arose.
ਮਨ ਨਾਮੁ ਜਪਿ ਨਾਮੁ ਆਰਾਧਿ ਅਨਦਿਨੁ ਨਾਮੁ ਵਖਾਣੀ ॥
Man nām(u) jap(i) nām(u) ārādh(i) anadin(u) nām(u) vakhāṇī.
O mind, contemplate Nām, dwell in Nām, speak Nām night and day.
ਉਪਦੇਸੁ ਸੁਣਿ ਸਾਧ ਸੰਤਨ ਕਾ ਸਭ ਚੂਕੀ ਕਾਣਿ ਜਮਾਣੀ ॥
Updes(u) suṇ(i) sādh santan kā sabh cūkī kāṇ(i) jamāṇī.
Hearing the guidance of the saints, all dependence on death falls away.
ਜਿਨ ਕਉ ਕ੍ਰਿਪਾਲੁ ਹੋਆ ਪ੍ਰਭੁ ਮੇਰਾ ਸੇ ਲਾਗੇ ਗੁਰ ਕੀ ਬਾਣੀ ॥੩॥
Jin kau kirpāl(u) hoā prabh(u) merā se lāge gur kī bāṇī. 3.
Those upon whom Prabhu, my own, became kirpālu turned toward Gurbani. 3.
Nām is not “the Name” in the sense of a word passed across the surface of attention. It is the living presence of the One as received within awareness, genuinely dwelt in. Anadin(u) means every day, night and day, continuously. The triple repetition of nām(u) jap(i), nām(u) ārādh(i), nām(u) vakhāṇī is the sabad’s closest thing to urgency. Not because the mind is lazy. Because the mind that scans the room needs something worth turning toward.
Kāṇ(i) means dependence, the weight of obligation or fear; jamāṇī carries the charge of Yama, the lord of death. All dependence on death. The fear underneath the scanning is named here at last: fear of loss, fear of ending, fear of not being held. When the guidance of the sādh santan genuinely lands, that fear loses its grip. Not through argument, but through contact with what does not end.
Kirpā is not mercy in the Western theological sense, not punishment withheld, not a debt forgiven. It is the enabling compassion that makes transformation possible, that opens the person to what is already present. Those upon whom that enabling compassion, kirpāl(u), landed are not distinguished by worthiness alone. They are distinguished by the fact that something opened. And what they turned toward was Gurbani; the living word of the Guru, received not as doctrine to be memorized but as a presence to be inhabited. It is the inexhaustible store this sabad has been pointing toward all along.
ਕੀਮਤਿ ਕਉਣੁ ਕਰੈ ਪ੍ਰਭ ਤੇਰੀ ਤੂ ਸਰਬ ਜੀਆ ਦਇਆਲਾ ॥
Kīmat(i) kauṇ(u) karai prabh terī tū sarab jīā daiālā.
Who can measure Your worth, O Prabhu? You are the compassionate One to every living being.
ਸਭੁ ਕਿਛੁ ਕੀਤਾ ਤੇਰਾ ਵਰਤੈ ਕਿਆ ਹਮ ਬਾਲ ਗੁਪਾਲਾ ॥
Sabh(u) kichh(u) kītā terā vartai kiā ham bāl gupālā. E
verything that moves is Your doing. What are we, O Gopal? Mere children.
ਰਾਖਿ ਲੇਹੁ ਨਾਨਕੁ ਜਨੁ ਤੁਮਰਾ ਜਿਉ ਪਿਤਾ ਪੂਤ ਕਿਰਪਾਲਾ ॥੪॥੧॥
Rākh(i) lehu nānak(u) jan(u) tumrā jiu pitā pūt kirpālā. 4. 1.
Protect Nanak, Your servant, as a father is tender toward a child. 4. 1.
The final stanza arrives somewhere the opening could not have predicted. Daiālu comes from daiā, tenderness, the quality of the One who inclines toward beings. Not a judge relenting. A presence drawing near. Sarab jīā daiālā names the One who is tender toward every living being. Not the worthy. Not the spiritually advanced. Every living being. The person scanning the room has always been included in sarab jīā.
The question kīmat(i) kauṇ(u) karai, who can measure worth, is its own answer. Nothing can. Gopal, the sustainer of all creation, is addressed directly: everything that moves is Your doing. The wish from the opening has not disappeared. It has found its actual address.
The voice speaking these words lived them fully. In 1606, Guru Arjan Sahib was arrested under the Mughal emperor Jahangir, tortured over several days, and died in Lahore. By all accounts, he spent those days in complete interior stillness. Not suppression. Absence of conflict. The one who compiled the Guru Granth Sahib, built the Harmandir Sahib, and held together the sangat had placed everything in the correct hands, and when the hardest moment arrived, it found no foothold. The child who had stopped performing self-sufficiency had nothing left to protect.
The sabad does not ask you to stop wishing someone would take the weight. It asks you to notice where the wish is addressed.
Every person you have scanned the room for is a bapuṛā māṇas, a genuinely helpless human, doing what they can with borrowed stores. When they cannot deliver, that is not a failure of affection or capability. It is the nature of the finite. The resentment that sometimes follows, the quiet grievance of why couldn’t they just come through, has been expecting from the vessel what only the source can provide. Releasing that expectation is not resignation. It is the beginning of being able to receive what people actually have to offer, without needing them to be more than they are.
The reorientation the sabad points toward is practical, not philosophical. When the mind that has been running the room and managing the optics turns, even partially, even imperfectly, toward what does not run out, something in the body changes. The scanning does not stop immediately. But it begins to lose its urgency. The mentor’s certainty becomes something to appreciate rather than something to depend on. The colleague’s composure becomes interesting rather than threatening.
The nine treasures, nav nidh(i), the fullness of what the world holds: the sabad says the Fearless, Formless One gives all of it. Not eventually. Now, to whoever turns toward what does not dissolve. That turning is what dhiāiā names: not a practice completed at a fixed hour, but a direction the mind can hold more and more of the time. Night and day, continuously.
The child in the final verse is not small. The posture of “mere children” is not self-diminishment. It is the specific relief of the one who has stopped needing to be the source. You can hold a great deal from that position. Perhaps more than from any other. The weight is real. It just belongs somewhere else.
What if the rescue was never coming, because it was already here?
Listen to this sabad sung by Bhai Gurbir Singh
Students of Gurdwara Baru Sahib