Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
In Assu, my love for the One simply overflows me. How do I get to it? How do I meet it? My heart and body are aching with thirst just to see its face. Won't someone please come and lead me to it — oh, mother, won't someone show me the way?
The holy ones are friends to everyone who loves the One, so I fall down and touch their feet. Without the Beloved, where could I ever find peace? There's nowhere else worth going. The ones who've tasted the sweetness of this love stay full and satisfied, wanting for nothing.
They let go of their pride and their puffed-up selves, and they pray, 'Please, attach me to the edge of your robe.' And those the One has joined to itself are never torn away again. There is truly no one else — so I've come into the One's shelter. In Assu, when the One is kind, such souls live in deep peace.
Assu (September-October) is the turning of the season — the monsoon has passed, the worst heat is over, and a gentler, transitional weather comes, neither scorching nor cold. It is a tender, in-between time, and the soul in this month is overwhelmed by love and almost frantic to find its way to the One: my love for the Lord overwhelms me. How can I go and meet the Lord?
The most touching moment in the stanza is its cry to the mother: Won't someone please come and lead me to him, O my mother. The longing has become so great that the soul turns, like a child, to anyone who might help — calling out to its mother, begging to be led to the Beloved it cannot reach on its own. This childlike helplessness is not weakness in the song's eyes; it is exactly the humility through which the One is found. The soul has given up the pretense that it can manage the journey alone.
And so it turns to the Saints — the helpers of the Lord's lovers — and falls at their feet. The stanza names the soul's whole posture in one phrase: they renounce their selfishness and conceit, and they pray, "God, please attach me to the hem of Your robe." Letting go of pride, asking only to be allowed to hold on — this is the gesture the whole Baarah Maaha keeps returning to. And the promise that answers it is among the song's most reassuring: those whom the Husband Lord has united with Himself shall not be separated from Him again. The union, once granted, is not fragile or probationary. The overwhelming love of Assu, when it is finally met, is met for good — and the soul that begged to be led at last dwells in peace.
Is there something you've been too proud to ask for help reaching — and who could help lead you to it?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI