Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
In Bhadon, the soul that's lost in doubt and tangled in 'two-ness' gets confused and frightened. It might be wearing a thousand ornaments — but if it's far from the Beloved, they're worth nothing at all.
Think of the day the body finally gives out: in that moment, a soul that lived only for the surface feels suddenly lost and adrift, and everything it leaned on slips away. The people it loved move on in an instant, and it's left alone, wringing its hands.
Whatever you planted is what you harvest — that's simply how the field of a life works. So I run to the One's shelter, and the One has handed me a boat — its own feet — to carry me across. Those who love the Guru, the Protector, are not thrown into the dark places, even in stormy Bhadon.
Bhadon (August-September) is the height of the monsoon's turbulence — heavy, humid, flooding, the rivers swollen and the skies wild. After the gentle rains of Sawan, Bhadon is the rains turned overwhelming, and Guru Arjan uses that stormy confusion for the soul lost in doubt: she is deluded by doubt, because of her attachment to duality. In the flood of Bhadon, a soul without an anchor is swept around, disoriented, frightened.
The stanza's central image is the most sobering in the whole song: the moment of death seen clearly. On that day when the body perishes... she becomes a ghost. The soul that lived only for the visible surface, decked in thousands of ornaments, discovers at the end that none of it holds: her loved ones, in an instant, move on, leaving her all alone. This is not cruelty toward the dying; it is an unflinching look at where a surface-only life leads — to a final aloneness, hands wringing, because nothing that was clutched can come along. It is the lived consequence of Vaisakh's warning (only the One goes with you) shown at the very end of the road.
And once more the farming-law: As she has planted, so does she harvest; such is the field of karma. A life is a field; the moment of death is the harvest; and you reap what you sowed. But — and this is the mercy that keeps the song from despair — the stanza turns, even here, to rescue: God has given him the Boat of His Feet. Against the flood of Bhadon, the One offers a boat — its own feet to cling to — and those who love the Guru shall not be thrown down into hell. The storm is real; the flood is real; but for the soul that has taken to the One's boat, the wild waters of Bhadon cannot pull it under.
If your life is a field, what are you planting in it day by day — and what harvest is it growing toward?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI