Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
They are wrapped up in their lovely houses and the pleasures the mind craves.
They never remember the One, Nanak — like grubs buried in filth.
A harsh image, to be read for its point, not its disgust: those who forget the One amid their comforts are "like maggots in manure." The teaching is about where you are content to live. A maggot is perfectly at home in filth, wanting nothing better — and a person can be just as content in a life of pure comfort-seeking, never suspecting there is anything higher to want. The sting is not contempt for the person but a wake-up: don't be so satisfied with small pleasures that you never look up. The image is deliberately jarring precisely to jolt someone out of a comfortable smallness.
Is it possible to be so comfortable that you stop reaching for anything deeper? How do you keep looking up?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI