Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
The burning of the heart is not cooled at all by sandalwood paste, or the moon, or the cold season.
It only becomes cool, Nanak, by saying the One's Name.
A precise and beautiful teaching about the inner fire (the burning of craving, anxiety, restlessness that runs through all these raags). Guru Arjan lists the traditional external coolants — sandalwood paste on the skin, the cool moon, the cold season — and says plainly: none of them touch this fire. Because the burning is inward, no external coolness reaches it. Only the Name cools it, because only the Name reaches the place where the fire actually burns. This is why comfort, pleasure, and pleasant circumstances (the external "coolants") never quite bring peace: the fire is inside, and only an inward remedy quenches it.
Why can't nice things and comfortable surroundings cool an inner restlessness? Where does that kind of fire actually have to be cooled?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI