Enjoy good things, but hold most tightly to the One that does not pass like a mirage — and when you stumble, a hand reaches down.
The Arc
P0 (rahau merged with verse 1) weighs sach against jhooth: wealth, youth, and comforts are real and even lovely, but impermanent, and mistaking them for the whole of life leaves one empty — pictured as a deer chasing a mirage and resting in moving shade. P1 admits how pride and clinging leave one unsteady, tangled in anger and endless wanting, and turns tenderly to the One: take me by the hand and lift me up.
Key Vocabulary
Akaarath (P0): fruitless — a life passing without touching what matters.
Marig trisnaa (P0): the deer chasing a mirage — things that look solid and slip away.
Drum chhaa-i-aa (P0): the moving shade of a tree — impermanent comfort.
Maan moh mad (P1): pride and clinging like a strong wine that unsteadies.
Kar geh layho (P1): take me by the hand — the tender, hopeful turn.
Themes and Cross-Connections
The mirage and moving-shade images are classic Gurbani pictures of impermanence, framing the project's sach-versus-jhooth teaching. The ego is treated as a stumble to be helped up from, not a crime — the kar geh layho prayer is pure gentleness.
For Raag Kaydaaraa
Guru Arjan's Mehl 5 shabad, ninth in the raag. It carries the raag's more sober note, yet resolves, as ever, in a hand reaching down to lift.
Translation Notes
"O mother" (maat, P0): the intimate address kept, as elsewhere in Guru Arjan's Kaydaaraa.
"Fallen into the pit of sexual desire and anger" (P1): rendered as stumbling into a tangle of anger and endless wanting — the teaching kept, the frightening pit imagery set aside for children.
"The madman" (baavar, P0): rendered as anyone who can be fooled, not a condemned fool.
Enjoy good things, but hold most tightly to the One that does not pass like a mirage — and when you stumble, a hand reaches down.
The Arc
P0 (rahau merged with verse 1) weighs sach against jhooth: wealth, youth, and comforts are real and even lovely, but impermanent, and mistaking them for the whole of life leaves one empty — pictured as a deer chasing a mirage and resting in moving shade. P1 admits how pride and clinging leave one unsteady, tangled in anger and endless wanting, and turns tenderly to the One: take me by the hand and lift me up.
Key Vocabulary
Themes and Cross-Connections
The mirage and moving-shade images are classic Gurbani pictures of impermanence, framing the project's sach-versus-jhooth teaching. The ego is treated as a stumble to be helped up from, not a crime — the kar geh layho prayer is pure gentleness.
For Raag Kaydaaraa
Guru Arjan's Mehl 5 shabad, ninth in the raag. It carries the raag's more sober note, yet resolves, as ever, in a hand reaching down to lift.
Translation Notes