Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
The restless, fickle mind gets knocked down again and again.
Miss this chance, and it finds no resting place.
It circles back into a life stuck in what is foul. That is the home the self-willed choose for themselves.
A restless mind can gamble away the one great chance this life gives.
Man chanchal baho chotaa khaa-ay — the fickle mind takes blow after blow. Chanchal means restless, jumping from thing to thing. Another shabad in Raag Aasaa pictures this mind as a drunken elephant.
The real worry is the missed chance. A human life is the opportunity to come close to the One. Wasting it means finding no place to rest. Think of a ticket to a once-in-a-lifetime concert left in a drawer until the date has passed.
The verse's picture of what follows is hard: being born again into a place of filth. And that is a home the manmukh, the self-willed one, moves into. It is chosen, not forced on them. Where we end up follows the way we face.
What is an opportunity right in front of you that you don't want to let slip past?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI