Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
He sees the terrible wilderness as if it were a fine city.
Looking at false things, he takes them to be real.
Caught in craving, anger and ego, he wanders as if out of his mind.
When the shock of death strikes his head, then he regrets it.
Without the perfect teacher, he roams around lost and led astray.
The Pauree names the core delusion precisely: "he sees the terrible wilderness as a city" and "gazing on false objects, believes them real." The whole trouble is a misperception — mistaking the wasteland for a home, the passing for the permanent. And the drivers are the passions: "craving, anger and egotism" (three of the panch vikaar), which distort perception until you can't tell wilderness from city. The regret comes late, at the shock of the end. What corrects the misperception is "the Perfect Guru" — the light that lets you see the wilderness as wilderness and stop mistaking it for home. Without that light, the wandering just continues.
How can strong feelings like anger or craving make you see things wrongly? What helps you see clearly again?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI