Sukhmani Sahib
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Consoler Of The Mind
Inder Raj Ahluwalia, May 29, 2025: The Times of India
The Fifth Sikh guru, Guru Arjan Dev’s life and achievements played a key role in shaping Indian history and spiritual traditions. Preaching Guru Nanak Dev’s mission, Guru Arjan Dev propagated humility, devotion, and surrender to God’s will. He imparted several teachings on important issues, such as acceptance of God’s will, trust, kindness, tolerance, and humility. The cornerstone of his teachings was having faith in one Creator.
At a physical level, one of his great tasks was the completion of the tank at Amritsar’s Golden Temple. Being truly secular, he had invited a Muslim saint, Mian Mir, to lay the temple’s foundation stone. With secularism being of paramount importance, his take on the subject is priceless. Through his life and teachings, the guru promoted universal brotherhood and religious tolerance.
Collecting hymns of the first four Sikh gurus and adding his own verses and those of Farid, Kabir, Raidas, Jaidev, and Bhikham, his greatest work was the compilation of the holy Adi Granth. Today, the Granth Sahib is revered by millions worldwide.
A priceless legacy bequeathed to us by the Guru is the Sukhmani Sahib prayer. Universally hailed as the ‘consoler of the mind’ and the ‘jewel of peace’, Sukhmani Sahib’s wealth of positive powers has won the faith of millions. Devotees recite it in devotion to the Guru as an expression of gratitude and faith; it is an invocation for physical and mental well-being and health.
In an environment dominated by significant turbulence and violence, the guru wrote the prayer to calm and heal, and he is omnipresent throughout its verses. He poured his very spirit, peace, into this composition. A powerful prescription for peace, calm, and bliss, prayer is undertaken by the devotee with the Guru’s generosity, mentorship, and guidance.
With ‘Sukh’, comfort, and ‘Mani’, mind, the prayer fulfils several goals. It refreshes the mind, soothes frayed nerves and rejuvenates the soul. It also banishes sorrow and removes anguish through sincere remembrance of God. In the third astapadi, canto, the Guru states that any study of holy texts, performance of austerities, etc, cannot compare with reading or listening to the Sacred Word.
Above all, Sukhmani Sahib helps one become a better person. It enables one to reach a high spiritual state through meditation and Self-realisation. Guru Arjan Dev believed that ‘men who stand for truth have to suffer, and their suffering strengthens the cause of truth’.
Amidst upheaval, he found time to encourage trade and industry among the Sikhs, which created a surge in business transactions. He favoured widow remarriage, which hugely impacted contemporary life, and condemned the use of intoxicants. His opening of a leprosy centre in Tarn Taran is a noble reference point in relation to this disease.
Almost everything Guru Arjan Dev did was directed at being tolerant, good, and progressive. Today’s ravaged, troubled, and fractured world must realise the depth and wisdom of the Guru’s philosophy and follow in his footsteps. Guru Arjan Dev created a roadmap for us, and now the onus is on us to follow it.
Tu ohakuru tuma pagi aradasi
Swami Swaroopananda, A Sikh Prayer, Offered With Humility, Feb 11, 2017: The Times of India
A prayer is a submission. It is an offering in humility and complete surrender, expressing servitude and love. It is verily a whisper from the soul. It reaches out like the faith of a child who puts his hand into that of his parent and wills to be led. A prayer must `know' the One Being prayed to. In whose hands are we placing ours? Whom do we trust to lead us?
Often our prayers and conversations with the Divine are requests for something. Generally , our attention is focussed on defining what we want rather than in knowing the Recipient of our prayers. This is akin to writing a long letter knowing neither the receiver nor his address.
More importantly , prayer has to be woven with the fabric of faith. In short, we need to know how to pray . And this we learn through a beautiful, spontaneous outpouring of Guru Arjan Dev, Tu ohakuru tuma pagi aradasi, which forms the last part of the fourth stanza of his famed composition, the Sukhmani Sahib.
Ardas means prayer, or prarthana. It is to connect with the Supreme. We pray in order to achieve through that Higher Power what we cannot achieve by ourselves, the limited beings we imagine ourselves to be.
Each of us is born with certain abilities and also with some limitations. We then become bound by these self-imposed concepts like the thought, “I am the body .“ Prayer is the way to remove these misconceptions and their hold over us. It is the direct route to ta over us. It is the direct route to tap into the Higher Power.
When we forget the very source of all, then ego, pride and arrogance come into our lives and create a sense of separateness. From the sense of separateness arises a feeling of incompleteness, followed by desire and hatred; and from hatred are born all our sorrows.
When we remember that everything we have has come from the Divine, there will be no ego. Where there is no ego, there is no sorrow.
Even at moments of crisis, we should rejoice at all our blessings.
When we remember God and offer our prayers from the innermost depths of our hearts, it is ardas. This is the best way to express our love for God. In this inspiring ardas, Guru Arjan Dev shows us how to pray .
Tu ohakuru is a submission e after worship and kirtan at that is done after worship and kirtan at the Gurudwara. The moment of ardas is also when we submit ourselves to the Divine, when after the earlier worship through ritual or chant, we prepare to unite with Him in surrender. This beautifully simple ardas constructs an inner environment with the bricks of prayer, gratitude and surrender, founded on the faith that He is the giver, provider, parent, and that we need work only as instruments do, with unconditional trust and devotion.
In the last line Guru Arjan Dev pays homage to Guru Nanak Devji and to the tradition of the Guru-parampara, through which the disciple acknowledges his indebtedness to his Guru and to the source of all wisdom none other than the Master (Tu ohakuru) acknowledged in the first line.
