Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
You are like fragrant sandalwood. I am just a plain, ordinary plant, growing close beside you.
Growing near you, I have been lifted up. Your beautiful fragrance has soaked into me, and this humble little plant has become something lovely.
Ravi Daas is saying: stay close to what is good, and its goodness rubs off on you.
He pictures two plants. The One is sandalwood, a tree so fragrant that everything near it starts to smell sweet. Ravi Daas calls himself the castor oil plant, a plain bush with no scent at all. Tum chandan ham irand baapuray sang tumaaray baasaa — You are sandalwood, and I am the poor castor plant, living close beside You.
Then comes the wonder. Neech rookh tay ooch bha-ay hai — from a lowly tree, I have become tall and fine. The sandalwood's sweet scent now lives in him.
That is how good company works. You do not have to be special first. You only have to grow near what is good. Think of a jacket hanging in a kitchen where bread is baking. It smells of fresh bread for hours. However plain or ordinary you feel, stay near good people and good things. Their fragrance soaks into you without you even trying.
Have you ever 'taken on the fragrance' of good people you spent time with — picked up their kindness?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI