Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Greed, pretending, doing harm, and getting hooked on things — these can tangle up anyone who isn't really looking. It's like walking around with your eyes shut.
When we cling tight to the world's dazzle, a kind of heaviness clings back to us. But noticing that is the first step to shaking it loose.
The letter Lala (L) opens this Shalok on what tangles a person: laalach (greed), jhooth (falseness), bikaar (harmful acts), moh (attachment). The source calls the ensnared moorhay andh — "the blind and foolish," and speaks of a durgandh (foul odor) clinging to those bound by maya. Per the project's rules, we soften the harsh labels: "foolish" becomes the gentle image of walking "with your eyes shut," and the "foul odor" becomes a "heaviness that clings back" — the teaching kept, the shaming dropped. In this project's lens, none of these traits are crimes to be despised; they are the natural knots of a mind that has forgotten the One, and the very act of noticing them is already the loosening. Awareness is the crack that lets the light in.
What's one "eyes-shut" habit you have, that just noticing honestly already begins to loosen?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI