Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
It's easy to get swept up in pleasures and playful thrills — but that kind of excitement is like a bright dye that looks dazzling one day and fades away almost overnight.
So I take shelter in the One instead. And in that shelter, the "me, me, mine, mine" grip quietly loosens and lets go.
A Shalok on fleeting pleasure versus lasting refuge. The classic Gurbani image is kusam rang — the color of the safflower, a dye famous for looking brilliant and then fading fast. It stands for any thrill that dazzles briefly and leaves you emptier. The source frames the passions specifically ("engrossed in women and playful pleasures"); we render it as the universal pull of "pleasures and playful thrills," keeping the teaching without a gendered charge. The word sor — "tumult, uproar" — captures how such excitement roars loud and then goes silent. The turn is tih sarnee para-o — take shelter in the One — and its effect: binas jaa-ay mai mor, "me" and "mine" dissolve. The point isn't that joy is bad; it's that chasing the fading kind keeps you hungry, while resting in what lasts loosens the ego's white-knuckle grip.
What excited you intensely for a short while and then faded — and what has stayed meaningful much longer?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI