ਕਰਿ ਕਿਰਪਾ ਅਪੁਨਾ ਦਾਸੁ ਕੀਨੋ ਕਾਟੇ ਮਾਇਆ ਫਾਧਿਓ ॥
kar kirpaa apunaa daas keeno kaatay maa-i-aa faaDhi-o.
Showing His Mercy, the Lord has made me His slave, and shattered the bonds of Maya.
ਭਾਉ ਭਗਤਿ ਗਾਇ ਗੁਣ ਗੋਬਿਦ ਜਮ ਕਾ ਮਾਰਗੁ ਸਾਧਿਓ ॥੧॥
bhaa-o bhagat gaa-ay gun gobid jam kaa maarag saaDhi-o. ||1||
Through loving devotion, and singing the Glorious Praises of the Lord of the Universe, I have escaped the Path of Death. ||1||
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
By mercy the One made me its own and shattered the chains of the glitter.
Through loving devotion and singing praise, I've slipped free of death's road.
You sing your way free — the chains are broken by grace, through love and praise, not by grim struggle.
The verse credits liberation entirely to mercy — the One "made me His slave, and shattered the bonds of Maya." And the means was "loving devotion and singing." This is the raag's consistent picture: the chains are broken by grace, through love and praise, not by grim struggle. You sing your way free, held by a mercy that does the actual breaking.
A Question to Sit With
What might loosen through love and song rather than through gritted-teeth struggle?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI
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