Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
When someone leaves this world, the people who love them gather close. They cry, and they walk with them as far as they can. That love is real and precious.
But at the very edge, the soul steps forward on its own, like a graceful swan setting off for home. Each of us takes that journey alone, and it is nothing to fear.
This one is about the moment a life ends. The people who love us walk with us as far as they can.
The verse pictures a family saying goodbye. The wife sits at the doorway in tears. The mother walks to the outer gate. Relatives go all the way to the cremation ground. Then the soul goes on by itself.
Kabir calls the soul a hans, a swan. Hans ikaylaa jaa-ay means the swan goes on alone. A swan is a graceful, gentle bird, so the picture is peaceful, not scary.
Think of friends walking you to the school gate on the first day. They come as far as they are allowed, and their love goes in with you. The family's love is like that. It walks with us right to the edge. The last step home is one each soul takes on its own.
What do you think makes a person's love stay with you even after they are gone?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI