Your Body Is a Journey You Were Sent On at Great Cost

Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa

Ay sareeraa mayri-aa is jag meh aa-ay kai ki-aa tuDh karam kamaa-i-aa — "O my body, what deeds have you done since coming into this world?" The body is spoken to a second time, now for an accounting: where verse 33 declared the body's origin (Light placed within), here the expedition is audited. The question is the traveler's audit — the human birth as a journey undertaken at great cost (Gurbani elsewhere: the jewel of birth, won after countless forms) — and the ledger's one fatal omission: jin har tayraa rachan rachi-aa so har man na vasaa-i-aa — the One who fashioned your form, you did not enshrine in your mind. The Maker excluded from the made.

Then the bani's characteristic mercy-turn: gur parsaadee har man vasi-aa — by grace the One comes to dwell — poorab likhi-aa paa-i-aa — and the pre-written destiny is received. The audit does not end in bankruptcy; grace retroactively fills the ledger. And the verdict-word: ayhu sareer parvaan ho-aa — this body becomes parvaan: accepted, approved, certified (the word used for coins that pass the assayer, for offerings accepted at court). A body whose consciousness is fastened to the True Guru passes — the journey justified.

Set beside its twin: verse 33 says you came in because of the Light; verse 35 asks what you did about it. Between them stand the eyes and ears verses — the bani inspecting the instruments one by one. The memento-mori of verses 11 and 19 (don't do what you'll regret at the end; death forgotten) here gets its constructive form: not fear of the audit, but the joy of a body finally spent on what it was minted for.