ਪਾਨੀਆ ਬਿਨੁ ਮੀਨੁ ਤਲਫੈ ॥
paanee-aa bin meen talfai.
Without water, the fish writhes in pain.
ਐਸੇ ਰਾਮ ਨਾਮਾ ਬਿਨੁ ਬਾਪੁਰੋ ਨਾਮਾ ॥੧॥ ਰਹਾਉ ॥
aisay raam naamaa bin baapuro naamaa. ||1|| rahaa-o.
So is poor Naam Dayv without the Lord's Name. ||1||Pause||
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Take a fish out of the water and it gasps — water is its whole life.
That is how it feels to be without the One's Name: like the very thing I am made to live in has been taken away.
The One's Name is not an extra — it is the water the soul is made to live in.
The rahau. Baapuro Naamaa — often read as poor Namdev — here is not self-pity but the honest ache of empty hands reaching. The fish-and-water image says the Name is not an extra; it is the element the soul is meant to breathe. This is the note the song keeps returning to.
A Question to Sit With
What is something you need so much that life feels wrong without it?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI
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