Sikhism·Raag Devgandhaari·Shabad 17
Verse 2 of 3

O mind, why are you so puffed up with egotism?

ਜਿਨਿ ਕੀਆ ਤਿਸੁ ਸਿਮਰਿ ਪਰਾਨੀ ਜੀਉ ਪ੍ਰਾਨ ਜਿਨਿ ਧਾਰਾ ॥
jin keeaa tis simar paraanee jeeau praan jin dhaaraa ||
Remember the One who created you, O mortal; He is the Support of your soul, and the breath of life.
ਤਿਸਹਿ ਤਿਆਗਿ ਅਵਰ ਲਪਟਾਵਹਿ ਮਰਿ ਜਨਮਹਿ ਮੁਗਧ ਗਵਾਰਾ ॥੧॥
tiseh tiaag avar lapaTaaveh mar janameh mugadh gavaaraa ||1||
One who forsakes Him, and attaches himself to another, dies to be reborn; he is such an ignorant fool! ||1||

Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa

In plain words

Remember the One who made you, the support of your soul and your very breath.

Whoever leaves that One and clings to something else keeps circling in loss — such a needless mistake.

The cure for empty pride is remembering who actually holds you up — and noticing that clinging to substitutes just keeps you going in circles.
The deeper layer

The antidote to hollow pride is memory: remember who made you. Not as guilt, but as re-grounding — the One is "the support of your soul and the breath of life," the actual source you depend on every second. The "clinging to another" is the ego's habit of attaching its security to substitutes — things, praise, achievements — that cannot bear the weight. "Dies to be reborn" describes the endless circling of a life that keeps investing in what can't hold it: you lose, you grasp again, you lose again. The "ignorant fool" (softened here) is not an insult but a diagnosis of a fixable error — you're leaning on the wrong things, and you can lean on the right one instead.

A Question to Sit With

What do you lean on for security? Does it hold your weight, or does it keep letting you down?

Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI

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