Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
A mind left to itself can grow proud and hard, tangled in its own confusion.
Anger simmers inside it, and it gambles away its clearness.
It slips into crookedness and does harm without meaning to.
With so much noise within, what can it truly hear, and what can it truly pass on?
Blind and deaf to what matters, it loses its way and wanders off the path.
So the restless mind keeps coming and going, never quite arriving.
Without meeting the teaching, it finds no place to rest.
It keeps living out the pattern that was written long before.
A mind full of its own noise cannot hear anything else, and it cannot find rest until it meets the true teacher.
This Shalok is by Guru Amar Das, the third Guru. It paints a hard picture of the manmukh, the person facing only themselves. The words are strong: ignorant, proud, full of anger, doing wrong, blind and deaf, coming and going again and again.
None of this is aimed at any one person. It describes what a mind does when it is left to itself. It grows proud and angry and tangled. And it cannot hear, because of all the noise inside it. Think of trying to hear a friend whisper while your headphones blast music. Here ego is a sickness to heal, not a crime.
The verse ends plainly. Bin satgur bhaytay thaa-ay na paa-ay: without meeting the true teacher, there is no place to rest. Naanak poorab likhiaa kamaa-ay: such a person lives out what was written before. The line just before gives the way out: meeting the true teacher is where rest is found.
Have you noticed how anger or pride can make it almost impossible to really listen? What helps the noise inside quiet down?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI