Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
It is so easy to be swept along by wanting, by flashes of anger, by clinging too tightly to what I love. In all that rush, I forget the One who never changes.
This body I fuss over feels solid and lasting. But it is more like a dream that fills the whole night, and then, at morning, is simply gone.
Wanting, anger and clinging pull our eyes away from what lasts. The body is real but passing, like a dream.
Kaam kroDh moh are three strong pulls. Kaam is craving, kroDh is anger, and moh is holding on too tight. Gurbani often names these as the things that trip us up. They work by grabbing all our attention, the way a buzzing phone grabs you in the middle of a talk. Then har moorat bisraa-ee — the One is forgotten. Har moorat means the One whose form never passes.
Then comes the dream. Jhoothaa tan saachaa kar maani-o ji-o supnaa rainaa-ee — the body is false, yet taken as true, like a dream in the night. Jhoothaa means false here in the sense of not lasting. A dream is vivid while it lasts. Then morning comes, and it is gone.
The body is not bad, and it is not something to dislike. It is just passing. So it is not the thing to build a whole life on.
When you wake from a very vivid dream, what does it feel like to realize it was only a dream?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI