Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
This confused age is like a bottle, and the glittering pull of things is the sweet wine inside it, and the dizzy mind keeps gulping it down.
And even so, the One is the one wearing every shape and face. That is all poor Nanak can say.
Maya is pictured as sweet wine and the mind as a drunkard who cannot stop drinking (cf. the "drunken elephant" of Shabad 34 and Raag Gauree). But the final line performs the shabad's deepest non-dual turn: even the intoxicating Maya is a form the One assumes. The illusion is not a rival power; it is the One in disguise. Naming this is not approval of the drunkenness — it is the only ground on which the drunkenness can finally be seen through.
How can naming something honestly — even something that traps you — be the first step to freedom from it?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI