Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
You cannot fool the flow of life by pretending; grasping and clinging only tangle a person up.
When someone drifts through their days half-asleep, chasing more and more, they keep circling the same sorrow and lose the path.
Whatever we plant, we harvest — that is simply how it works.
But Nanak says: forget the Name, and every season feels sour. Remember it, and even the ordinary days turn sweet.
Dhohu na chalee khasam naal — "deception does not work with the Master." You can perform goodness for other people; reality registers only what is there. Lab mohi vigutay: lab (grasping greed) and moh (clinging attachment) vigutay, "tangle/ruin" a person. Fir fir joon bhavaa-ee-an ("spun through reincarnation again and again") and jam maarag (the path of Death) are the original words; a child knows them as the felt experience of circling the same sorrow and losing the way. Kee-taa paa-in aapnaa is the plainest karma: you meet what you made. The last line flips it to hope: remember the Name, and the sour seasons sweeten.
Is there something you sometimes "perform" for others that you don't feel inside? What would it take to make it real?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI