You Have Forgotten the Lord — and Your Virtues Are Withering
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
In your mind — you fool — you do not even remember the One. You have forgotten.
And your virtues — the goodness that was there — it is withering away.
The rahao (pause) shabad here is pointed. "You fool" — Guru Nanak addresses himself as much as anyone. This is the tradition of Gurbani: the Guru speaks to the self, not at others from a position of superiority.
The connection between forgetting the oneness and virtues withering is not punitive — it is causal. Goodness is not something you maintain by willpower. It flows from connection to the source. When that connection is broken, virtue doesn't survive on its own for long. The tree cut from its roots eventually loses its leaves.
Have you noticed that when you are feeling most disconnected — most anxious, most distracted, most selfish — you are also often at your least kind? What do you think that connection is?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI