Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
The king is only a little boy, and his city has walls that crumble easily. He loves the very troublemakers who would harm him.
He reads that he has two mothers and two fathers. O Pandit, wise teacher, think this over.
Your untrained mind is like a boy king who has made friends with troublemakers.
Guru Nanak starts with a riddle for a pandit, a learned teacher, and asks him to stop and think.
Picture a king who is only a small boy. His city has weak walls. And he has made friends with the very people who want to harm it. The boy king is our untrained mind. The weak city is our body. The bad friends are the pulls of our senses — wanting more to eat, more to watch, more to have.
Then comes a harder puzzle: du-ay maa-ee du-ay baapaa — two mothers and two fathers. It stands for the paired forces that shape each of us. It is a riddle to wonder about, not to show off with. A clever mind has to slow down and think it through.
Have you ever made friends with something that turned out not to be good for you?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI