Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
The farmers are tangled in their farming.
People who live inside the ego pay a price, and the King collects what is owed.
This one says that even honest work can become a net.
BanDhan kirkhee karahi kirsaan — farmers are tied up in their farming. Ha-umai dann sahai raajaa mangai daan — people living in ego pay a price, and the King collects it.
Farming stands for all honest work, and that is why this verse stings. Nothing is wrong with the plow. But even good work becomes a net when it fills the whole sky, and no moment is left in the day to look up.
The "price" is not the One being cruel. It is the cost that living for "me" charges on its own: worry, tiredness, and a harvest that never feels like enough. Think of a phone game that keeps asking for one more level. The game is not mean. It just never lets you stop. That is Hukam, the One's order: not a punishment dropped from above, but a result that unfolds.
What work fills your mind so completely that you forget to look up?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI