Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
When the One is forgotten, a person can go through the motions of living without ever feeling fully alive.
Turning away from the source is its own kind of struggle — the aching restlessness of being cut off from what would ease you.
This is one of the Vaar's harder Shaloks, and it has been handled with care. The original speaks of those who mar ga-ay (are as if dead though breathing) and compares the one who turns away, vaimukh, to a thief on the gallows. In this project's voice, the frightening execution image is set down; what remains is the true psychological teaching underneath it: forgetting your source is not a punishment inflicted from outside — it is the built-in ache of being vaimukh, "faced away" from what would settle you. The suffering here is self-defeating, like being thirsty while standing in a river with your back to it. The cure is simply to turn back around.
Have you ever felt restless and "off" and later realized you'd drifted from something that grounds you? What helped you turn back?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI