When the Mind Finds Its Giver
Why does stillness only come when everything else is tried?
Why does stillness only come when everything else is tried?
There’s a quiet moment, often late and often alone, when the distractions fall silent. The texts are read, the music paused, the scrolling stopped. And yet the mind spins. Not wildly, not anxiously. Just… untethered. It tries reaching for grounding. Memories, plans, or reassurances - but none stay long. Stillness does not arrive by effort. It waits somewhere deeper.
In those moments, something unspoken becomes clear. That what the mind truly wants isn’t clarity or comfort. It wants presence. A presence so vast it dissolves the hunger it had been trying to feed.
This is where this sabad from Guru Arjan Sahib in Raag Gujri meets us. It speaks not of what to do, but what unfolds when the One who sustains all is remembered. Not abstractly, but intimately, as breath, as rhythm, as inner companionship. The sabad does not urge striving, but invites return. Not to an ideal, but to the One already within.
Raag Gujri is known for invoking longing and gentle ache—a yearning not just to know, but to be known. And Guru Arjan, the fifth Guru of the Sikhs, sang from such a place. Not as despair, but as surrender into presence. His life was a tapestry of vision, poetic mastery, and deep grace amidst empire and oppression. He compiled the Adi Granth, gave form to Harmandir Sahib as a house of inclusivity, and offered his life without resistance and became the first Sikh martyr. His death was not a protest, but a presence. Bearing torture with stillness, immersed in Sabad, refusing both retaliation and plea. The very sabad we read may have been uttered from that furnace of embodied remembrance.
ਗੂਜਰੀ ਮਹਲਾ ੫ ॥
gūjrī pañjavīṁ pāts̖āhī
Raag Gujri, Fifth Embodiment (Guru Arjan Sahib)
ਤੂੰ ਦਾਤਾ ਜੀਆ ਸਭਨਾ ਕਾ ਬਸਹੁ ਮੇਰੇ ਮਨ ਮਾਹੀ ॥
tūʼn dātā jīā sabhnā kā basahu mere man māhī
You are the Giver of all beings. Reside within my mind.
The sabad opens with a simple plea, not for gifts, but for the Giver. It recognizes that all life receives from the same Source, and from that recognition comes a yearning. Not to possess the Divine, but to dwell with It, to hold that Giver in the center of awareness.
ਚਰਣ ਕਮਲ ਰਿਦ ਮਾਹਿ ਸਮਾਏ ਤਹ ਭਰਮੁ ਅੰਧੇਰਾ ਨਾਹੀ ॥੧॥
caraṇ kamal rid māhi samāe tah bharam andherā nāhī
Where the lotus-feet of the Divine settle in the heart, there is no confusion or darkness.
The lotus-feet symbolize gentle anchoring, a presence felt not as dogma but as subtle radiance. Where that presence dwells, restlessness dissolves. Confusion - the mental fog of "what if" and "what next" - has no room. Not because questions are answered, but because they are no longer loud.
ਠਾਕੁਰ ਜਾ ਸਿਮਰਾ ਤੂੰ ਤਾਹੀ ॥
ṭhākur jā simrā tūʼn tāhī
Wherever I remember You, Master, You are already there.
There is no distance. No delay. The Divine is not summoned; it is revealed. The sabad gently dispels the notion of separation. When remembrance arises, it is not to call the One closer, but to see that the One was never far.
ਕਰਿ ਕਿਰਪਾ ਸਰਬ ਪ੍ਰਤਿਪਾਲਕ ਪ੍ਰਭ ਕਉ ਸਦਾ ਸਲਾਹੀ ॥੧॥ ਰਹਾਉ ॥
kar kirpā sarab pratipālak prabh kau sadā salāhī
Bless me, O All-Sustaining One, that I may forever sing Your praise.
Pause and reflect.
This is the core of the sabad: a desire not for worldly gain, but for continuous praise. Praise here is not performance, but posture. A way of being that flows from connection. The mind longs to stay turned toward the One who sustains all, not as duty, but as devotion.
ਸਾਸਿ ਸਾਸਿ ਤੇਰਾ ਨਾਮੁ ਸਮਾਰਉ ਤੁਮ ਹੀ ਕਉ ਪ੍ਰਭ ਆਹੀ ॥
sās sās terā nām samārau tum hī kau prabh āhī
With every breath, I remember Your Name; You alone I yearn for, O Divine.
This line grounds remembrance in the body. Each breath as rhythm, each inhale and exhale as touchpoints for connection. The yearning is not intellectual. It is breath-deep, cellular. It does not seek many thing. It seeks One. Over and over.
ਨਾਨਕ ਟੇਕ ਭਈ ਕਰਤੇ ਕੀ ਹੋਰ ਆਸ ਬਿਡਾਣੀ ਲਾਹੀ ॥੨॥੧੦॥੧੯॥
nānak ṭek bhaī karte kī hor ās biḍāṇī lāhī
Nanak: The Creator became my support; all other hopes were cast away.
This closing reflection does not dramatize triumph. It simply describes a shift. The support of the Creator becomes enough. Not because all desires were fulfilled, but because the ache for more is quieted. Other hopes such as those that promised security, success, and approval, all fade without regret.
Guru Arjan's presence lingers in the sabad not through martyrdom alone, but through this kind of interior clarity. At the hands of tormentors, he chose remembrance. Not passivity, not pain-seeking. Remembrance. “Your will is sweet,” he uttered. His breath still anchored in Naam, even as his body was placed upon burning sand.
This sabad then becomes more than poetic expression. It becomes an echo of that choice. To remember when forgetting would be easier. To lean into presence when escape seems justified. To hold the Giver, not the gift.
Stillness, then, is not the absence of thought. It is the presence of the One the thoughts were trying to lead us toward all along. Even the most frantic mind carries that longing. Even the most distracted breath is still breath. This sabad does not ask us to become something other than we are. It asks: what happens when the Giver is remembered?
Perhaps this week, the practice is not to strive for peace. But to notice the breath. To wonder, in the middle of any task: What would it mean if the Giver was already here? Not as reward, not as idea, but as presence. Breath by breath.
In the stillness that follows, may the One who gives all reside gently within.
Listen to this sabad sung by Bhai Satvinder Singh & Bhai Harvinder Singh
Bibi Rajwinder Kaur
Bhai Jagjeet Singh Babiha
Bhai Surinder Singh Jodhpuri
Bhai Maninder Singh