Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Without the Perfect Guru, no one comes to know the Lord.
Attached to Maya, people stay engrossed in duality.
But the Gurmukh receives the Name, and the Lord's own Bani.
On our own we cannot find the One, because the mind is already full; the Guru makes room.
Vin gur pooray ko-ay na jaanee — without the Perfect Guru, no one comes to know the One. Intelligence is not the problem. The heart is already taken. Maya, the pull of illusion, has moved in. Doojai, "the second thing," a rival love, fills up all the attention. Think of a backpack stuffed so full that nothing new can fit. With no space, nothing new can arrive.
Then comes the gift. Through the Guru come the Name and the Bani, the Guru's own songs. The Name is the new one who moves in. The Bani is the song it sings as it arrives.
Guru Amar Das never blames the people who are stuck. He simply shows where the door was all along.
What occupies the space in you where something better could live?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI