Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
What did you really bring into this world, and what will you carry out of it? Life lifts us high and sets us low, over and over, like a bucket rising and dropping on a rope in a well. Best not to be caught clinging to what we can never keep.
The frightening "noose of Death" is turned here toward its gentler, truer meaning: the folly of clinging to what we cannot hold. Ki-aa lai aa-i-aa lay jaa-ay ki-aa — you brought nothing in, you take nothing out; the arms-open truth of a passing life. The beautiful image is dol badhaa kas jayvree — the bucket tied to a rope, hauled up to the sky (aakaas) and lowered to the depths (pataalaa): life's ups and downs, its risings and fallings, endlessly. The teaching is not fear but perspective — hold lightly what you were never meant to keep.
If you cannot keep any of your things forever, what does that make you value most?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI