Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
When a heart doesn't understand itself, it imagines the One is far away.
Forgetting to serve the Guru, how can the mind feel the nearness that is always right here?
A life turned only to greed and pretending slips past without settling.
Nanak says: yet the One forgives, and draws such a heart close through the true Word -- always near, never absent.
A Guru Amar Das shalok. The gentle diagnosis: apnaa aap na pachhaan-ee, har prabh jaataa door -- the one who doesn't know their own self imagines the One is far. The distance is a misperception, not a fact. The manmukh (self-turned) is described with compassion -- a life "slipping past" in greed, not condemned. And the turn is pure grace and nearness: bakhas milaa-i-an... sachai sabad hadoor -- forgiven and drawn close; the One is hadoor, ever-present. The One you think is far has never been anywhere but near.
Has something ever felt far from you when it was right there the whole time?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI