Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
O my mind, say the Name of the One, and all your tangled affairs will sort themselves out.
The perfect teacher planted the Name inside me; without the Name, a life runs empty.
Without the teacher, the self-directed wander foolish and lost. They are forever caught in their attachment to illusion.
They never bow to the good, and their lives run to waste.
This part says: keep the One's Name in mind, and life gets less tangled.
The line marked "Pause" (rahaa-o) is the center of the shabad, the idea everything else turns around. Its promise is bold and practical. Mayray man bhaj raam naam sabh arthaa — O my mind, remember the One's Name, and all your affairs will be sorted out. Nothing is fixed by magic from outside. A mind rooted in the One simply stops tying so many of its own knots.
Then Guru Ram Das draws a contrast he uses often. A Gurmukh faces the Guru, toward the One. A manmukh faces their own ego and does whatever it wants. The manmukh is not called bad. They are called lost: foolish, caught up in moh maa-i-aa (clinging to things that pass), going in circles.
Think of someone walking the wrong way down a school hallway. They are not a bad person. They are just facing the wrong way. And anyone can turn around.
How many of your own worries do you actually create yourself? What might change if your mind were anchored somewhere steady?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI