When Fear Loses Its Hold
What happens when the mind no longer trembles at the world’s threats?
What happens when the mind no longer trembles at the world’s threats?
Some nights, before sleep comes, the mind counts fears like beads on a string. What if the plan fails? What if the body weakens? What if love disappears, or the voice breaks when it’s most needed? Even without monsters under the bed, grown hearts learn to hide from shadows that live inside them. And yet, alongside this catalogue of worries, there is often an unspoken longing—an ache to know a shelter that cannot be breached, a sanctuary where nothing can truly wound what matters most.
Guru Amar Das Sahib, the third embodiment of Guru-Wisdom, knows this ache well and invites the trembling mind to see how easily fear loses its hold when the gaze steadies on the One who pervades all. These stanzas from a sabad in Raag Bilaval (Ang 842, Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji) speak directly to this quiet revolution: fear does not have to rule. Protection does not have to be negotiated or earned. There is a refuge larger than any threat, waiting where Nam, the living Presence, breathes peace into the restless body.
In these words, there is no promise that suffering disappears or that storms never come. Instead, there is a shift in where the being lives: not outside in the battlefield of worry but inside a sanctuary that no enemy can cross. Each line brings the seeker closer to that sanctuary.
ਬਿਲਾਵਲੁ ਮਹਲਾ ੩ ॥
Bilaval Mahala 3
Bilaval, Third Embodiment of Wisdom
Raag Bilaval is a musical landscape of gentle joy and clarity, often evoking a sense of quiet contentment. Within this raag, Guru Amar Das Sahib sings of a fearlessness that arises not from personal strength but from surrender to the One who is strength itself.
ਜਿਸ ਦਾ ਸਾਹਿਬੁ ਡਾਢਾ ਹੋਇ ॥
Jis da sahib daadha hoe
The one whose Master is powerful,
In this opening line of the fourth stanza, the sabad sets the condition for true courage. The mind does not stand alone against its enemies. There is no instruction here to become more powerful by personal will. Instead, the comfort is that the One who owns every breath is already powerful beyond measure. Daadha means forceful, mighty—able to outmatch every adversary the mind can imagine.
This is a truth deeper than motivational slogans: it is not the servant’s muscle that ensures survival, but the Master’s inexhaustible power. So the fragile heart is not asked to become invincible; it is asked to remember who holds it.
ਤਿਸ ਨੋ ਮਾਰਿ ਨ ਸਾਕੈ ਕੋਇ ॥
Tis no maar na saakai koe
No one can harm that one.
No harm can touch what is carried in the palm of the Infinite. This is not immunity from pain, but from ruin. Enemies—anger, greed, attachments, fears—may knock at the door, but they cannot destroy the sanctuary of the one whose refuge is the Master’s own might.
This assurance does not numb suffering but unhooks its fangs. Hurt may happen, but harm, in the deepest sense, cannot. The essence remains untouched.
ਸਾਹਿਬ ਕੀ ਸੇਵਕੁ ਰਹੈ ਸਰਣਾਈ ॥
Sahib ki sevak rahai sarnaai
The Master’s servant remains in sanctuary.
Sanctuary: not a fort on a hill but a place within the being where surrender weaves a shelter stronger than stone walls. Rahai sarnaai is to dwell continually in the Master’s refuge. Not visiting it on hard days only, but living there always, knowing no storm can find a crack.
The sabad gently reminds that this sanctuary is not exclusive, not locked behind ritual or status. It is as close as trust. Anyone who calls the Master their center lives here.
ਆਪੇ ਬਖਸੇ ਦੇ ਵਡਿਆਈ ॥
Aape bakshe de vaddiaai
The Master forgives and grants honor.
Honor or vaddiaai in this context is the radiance of being seen and cherished by the One. It is not fame or social rank, but a dignity that cannot be stolen by gossip, shame, or mistake. The Master forgives the servant’s failings, and in that forgiveness, the servant’s honor stands unshakeable.
In a world where reputation can rise or fall in a day, this is a radical relief: true honor comes not from fragile applause but from the Master’s unwavering blessing.
ਤਿਸ ਤੇ ਊਪਰਿ ਨਾਹੀ ਕੋਇ ॥
Tis te oopar naahee koe
There is none higher than that Master.
Above this protection, this mercy, this granting of dignity—there is no higher authority. No rival power to overrule it. No fear so large that it can eclipse the Master’s embrace.
ਕਉਣੁ ਡਰੈ ਡਰੁ ਕਿਸ ਕਾ ਹੋਇ ॥੪॥
Kaun darai daru kis ka hoe ||4||
Who then fears, and what is there to fear?
Here the sabad turns to the trembling mind with a gentle challenge: if this is true, if the Master is supreme and intimate, what is left to fear?
This question is not an accusation but an invitation. It does not shame fear—it dissolves it in the warmth of certainty. Fear loses its argument when the mind recalls whose refuge it has found.
ਗੁਰਮਤੀ ਸਾਂਤਿ ਵਸੈ ਸਰੀਰ ॥
Gurmati saant vasai sareer
Through the Guru’s wisdom, peace resides in the body.
The fifth stanza opens with a promise not just for the mind but for the whole body. Guru’s wisdom or gurmat, is not an idea hovering in thought alone. It seeps into sinews and breath, calming racing hearts, easing the tension in the shoulders, slowing the restless feet. Peace is not an absence of conflict but the presence of an anchoring calm within it. Through the Guru’s wisdom, the body itself becomes a home for this calm.
ਸਬਦੁ ਚੀਨਿੑ ਫਿਰਿ ਲਗੈ ਨ ਪੀਰ ॥
Sabad cheen fir lagai na peer
One who recognizes the Sabad does not suffer again.
Cheen is to know, to recognize intimately. This is not a surface reading but a living relationship with Sabad, the Guru’s Word-Wisdom. To know Sabad is to see one’s own true nature reflected and sustained in it. Pain may come, but it cannot pierce this knowing. The being stands in the storm yet remains unbroken.
ਆਵੈ ਨ ਜਾਇ ਨਾ ਦੁਖੁ ਪਾਏ ॥
Aavai na jaai naa dukh paae
Such a one does not come and go, nor do they suffer pain.
This does not mean the body will never hurt or life will never change. It means the soul, resting fully in Nam, knows itself as constant. Birth and death are only movements in the wider sky of the Master’s presence. What comes and goes is only the wave; what remains is the ocean.
ਨਾਮੇ ਰਾਤੇ ਸਹਜਿ ਸਮਾਏ ॥
Naame raate sahaj samaae
Immersed in Nam, one effortlessly merges.
Raatay is to be dyed or soaked. To be colored by Nam is to carry the fragrance of the One in every thought, word, and act. Sahaj is the state of effortless ease—a stillness that does not require struggle to sustain. The servant lives, works, laughs, mourns, and yet remains merged in this underlying calm.
ਨਾਨਕ ਗੁਰਮੁਖਿ ਵੇਖੈ ਹਦੂਰਿ ॥
Nanak gurmukh vekhai hadoor
Nanak, the Guru-oriented sees the One ever-present.
The sabad returns to vision. Not mystical visions, but the simple seeing that the Master is here—close enough to touch, nearer than breath. For the Gurumukh, the Guru-facing one, the presence is never distant or theoretical. It is hadoor—here, now, always.
ਮੇਰਾ ਪ੍ਰਭੁ ਸਦ ਰਹਿਆ ਭਰਪੂਰਿ ॥੫॥
Mera prabh sad rahia bharpoor ||5||
My Master is forever pervading all.
This last line is the breath that steadies everything. The Master is not locked in a temple or a ritual. This Presence spills over every boundary, filling the emptiest corners, the darkest nights, the heaviest fears. Nothing exists outside this fullness.
Let’s reflect on Guru Amar Das Sahib’s life for a moment, in the light of this sabad.
The Third Sovereign was not born into spiritual certainty. He is remembered as a luminous example of what it means to search, to stumble, and to find shelter so deeply that fear dissolves in its warmth. For most of his life, he was a seeker wandering through rituals and renunciations, traveling to holy sites, carrying the restlessness of a mind still haunted by questions.
In his late years — nearly into old age — he encountered the living presence of Guru Angad Sahib. That encounter changed not just his direction but his way of being. From a weary pilgrim, he became a servant so humble that he drew water for the Guru’s bath every day, even in storms, even when mocked by relatives. It was through this tireless, loving seva that he tasted the fearless refuge spoken of in this sabad.
Guru Amar Das Sahib did not preach a retreat from the world’s challenges; instead, he invited seekers to see how deeply shelter can be found within the world’s harshness. His sabads overflow with reminders that the truest strength is not born of personal power but of leaning completely into the Master’s embrace — a trust that undoes the knots of doubt, status, and fear.
This very sabad reflects his life’s wisdom. It is not a philosophy carved out in isolation; it is a radiant distillation of a life lived in surrender, service, and deep companionship with the Guru’s Nam. It is the voice of a once-fearful wanderer turned sanctuary-dweller. He offers the same assurance to anyone trembling today: come close, stand near, remember whose servant you are, and fear will lose its hold.
May this remembering draw courage from Guru Amar Das Sahib’s footsteps: that no age is too late, no fear too rooted, for the Master’s presence to fill the mind with a calm that no worldly power can shake. May every recitation of these words ripple softly through the heart: Kaun darai, dar kis ka hoe? Who shall fear? What is there to fear, when the One is near?
In the quiet after these words settle, fear may tap again at the mind’s door. That is its habit. The sabad does not promise that fear will never visit, only that it need not rule.
When fear comes—before sleep, before dawn, in the midst of a hard conversation—pause. Breathe. Remember the sanctuary described here: a refuge not made of stone but of surrender. A shelter where honor does not depend on others’ praise, where protection does not demand constant vigilance, where the body itself can become a dwelling for peace.
This is not escape; it is arrival. Fear finds no purchase where the Master’s presence is felt as hadoor—immediate.
May these lines be a gentle companion on the days when fear tightens its grip. May they remind the heart: the Master is powerful. None is higher. Who, then, shall fear—and what, really, is there left to fear?
Sit with this a moment longer. Let the words soften the chest, slow the breath, quiet the mind. And when tomorrow’s fear returns, meet it not with argument but with remembrance: Mera Prabh sad rahia bharpoor. The Master is here. The Master is all.
Listen to this sabad sung by Bhai Harjinder Singh
By Bhai Gopal Singh Ragi
By Bhai Nirmal Singh Khalsa