Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Nanak speaks the true reflection:
keep the Name of the Lord enshrined in your heart.
Dyed in devotion to the One, the gate of liberation is found.
The shabad ends with one small instruction to carry all your life: keep the Name in your heart.
The pause line gave the essence of wisdom. This last verse boils it down even further. Har kaa naam rakhahu ur Dhaar — keep the Name of the One held close in your heart. It is small enough to carry and big enough to live on.
Then comes a picture of dye. Raatay means dyed. The devoted one is more than sprinkled with devotion, or touched by it now and then. They are dyed in it, colored all the way through, like a cotton shirt dyed deep blue. That color stays through every wash. In Gurbani this deep color is called Rang.
For the one dyed like that, the mokh du-aar, the gate of freedom, is found. It is not handed out like a prize. It is found, the way you find the door once you walk into the right house.
If your devotion to what you love were a dye, how deep has the color gone?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI