Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Throughout the three worlds runs the one Maya.
The fool reads and reads — and only holds tighter to the love of other things.
He performs ritual after ritual and harvests only suffering.
Serving the True Guru, lasting peace is found.
There is only one Maya, and only the Guru leads the way out of it.
Maya is the spell of the world, the pull of things that makes us forget the One. Teen bhavan meh aykaa maa-i-aa — in all three worlds there is one Maya. It covers everything. There is no corner free of the spell to run to, no library and no place of ritual outside it. Think of WiFi in a building: it reaches every room.
That is why the fool's two favorite ways out fail. One is reading. Moorakh parh parh doojaa bhaa-o drirh-aa-i-aa — the fool reads and reads, and only holds tighter to doojaa bhaa-o, the love of what is other than the One. Reading can be Maya dressed up as a scholar. The word drirh-aa-i-aa means to plant firmly. Elsewhere the same word is used for planting the Name. So study can plant either one.
The other way out is piling up more and more rituals. The verse says that brings only suffering. The real way out was never a place or a technique. It is serving the true Guru. That changes not the world, but the one who is seeing it.
When has doing more of something been your way of avoiding the one thing that would actually help?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI