Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
The wick has burned down, the oil is used up.
The drum has gone quiet, and the performer has drifted off to sleep.
This one pictures a show coming to an end.
baatee sookee tayl nikhootaa — the wick has dried up, and the oil is gone. mandal na baajai nat pai sootaa — the drum is silent, and the actor has gone to sleep.
Kabir is picturing the noise and busyness of a life winding down. All the showing-off, all the me-first acting, grows still. Think of a school play when the lights go down and the audience goes home. The stage is quiet.
It sounds like an ending, and in one way it is. But Kabir points to something freeing. When the loud show of the me-first self goes quiet, what is left is not emptiness. It is the peace that the noise was covering up. The next line shows what remains.
Have you noticed a good kind of peace when all the noise and busyness finally stops?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI