Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
There is One Creator of all, known by the True Guru's grace.
Without the One, my soul cannot last — like a baby without milk.
The One, past all reach and grasp, is found by facing the teaching; I would give anything for my true teacher.
We need the One the way a baby needs milk.
Guru Ram Das, the fourth Guru, starts with a picture every family knows. Har bin jee-araa reh na sakai — without the One, my soul cannot live. Ji-o baalak kheer aDhaaree — just as a baby lives on milk. A baby without milk is not just a little sad. It cannot get by at all.
That is the big claim here. The One is not a treat or an extra comfort. The One is the soul's everyday food, as basic as milk to a baby. The One is agam agochar, beyond reach and beyond our senses. Yet the gurmukh, the person who faces the Guru's teaching, finds the One anyway. What we could never reach on our own comes to us by grace, through the teaching.
What is so basic to your wellbeing that, like a baby without milk, you couldn't really do without it?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI