Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
When the One's Name doesn't live in a heart, it is a barren waste.
Such lives wander lost and abandoned without the Name. They run down and cry out in pain.
This part says that a heart cut off from the One can feel dry and empty inside.
The first line uses a harsh saying from its time for a wasted life. We don't carry that harshness forward. No life is a mistake for having been born. The teaching underneath is about emptiness.
Sunjee dayh fireh bin naavai — without the Name, they wander about, empty and alone. Think of a phone with a dead battery. It is still there, but it can't do what it was made for. That is how being cut off feels from the inside: dry, aimless, wandering.
Guru Ram Das is describing that feeling. He is not judging anyone's worth. The ache he names is real, the sense of a life running down without ever touching what matters. And the rest of the shabad answers it.
What does it feel like when life seems empty or purposeless? Where might the fullness come from?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI