Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
In Vaisakh, how can the soul stay patient when it feels so far from its Beloved? It has forgotten the One who is its very life, and gotten tangled up instead in Maya — the glittering, tricky pull of things.
Listen: not your child, not your dearest person, not your money — none of it goes with you in the end. Only the Eternal One goes along. The whole world is caught up, busy and breathless, in chasing things that aren't even real — and slips away empty-handed, having lost what mattered most.
But the ones who hold tight to the Beloved's feet — their name stays clean and bright. So this is my prayer: please, come and make me one with you. Vaisakh turns beautiful and sweet the moment a holy soul helps me meet the One.
Vaisakh (April-May) is harvest time and the season of new beginnings — and the stanza opens with the bride's impatience: how can the bride be patient? She is separated from her Beloved. The longing of Chayt has sharpened into restlessness. And Guru Arjan names the cause without flinching: she has forgotten the Lord, her Life-companion... she has become attached to Maya, the deceitful one. The separation, again, is self-made — the soul let go of the One and grabbed the glittering surface instead.
Then the stanza delivers one of the most sobering and clarifying truths in all of Gurbani: Neither son, nor spouse, nor wealth shall go along with you — only the Eternal Lord. This is not a rejection of family or of love; it is a statement about what lasts, about what you actually carry across the final threshold. At the end, the people and possessions we spent our lives clutching stay behind; only the One goes with us. The soul that has invested everything in the temporary will arrive at the end empty-handed — the whole world is perishing, busy to the last with false occupations, never having gathered the one thing that endures.
But the stanza does not end in dread; it ends in hope and a clean name. Pure is the reputation of those who are attached to the Feet of the Beloved Lord. Those who held on to what lasts are themselves made lasting, their name kept bright. And Vaisakh — the harvest month — becomes truly beautiful and pleasant not because of the crops in the field but because of the one harvest that matters: meeting the One, with a holy soul's help. The outer season is only a frame; the real spring is the soul's meeting with its Beloved.
If only one thing could go with you across the final threshold, are you gathering any of it now?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI