Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
They chant and do harsh disciplines for years and years. They travel all over the whole earth, wandering, never stopping. And still, not even for one second does peace settle into their hearts. The seeker keeps getting up and rushing off again, searching, searching — but never arriving anywhere that feels like rest.
This pauri intensifies the previous one, focusing on the most extreme efforts of all. Anik barakh kee-e jap taapaa — "for countless years, chanting and severe austerities (tap)." Gavan kee-aa dhartee bharmaataa — "wandering, roaming the whole earth." These are the heroic spiritual athletes — decades of discipline, endless pilgrimage. If effort could buy peace, they would have it.
But the verdict is devastating in its quietness: ik khin hirdai saant na aavai — "not for a single instant (khin) does peace enter the heart." Years of effort, and not one moment of real rest. And then the haunting image: jogee bahurh bahurh uth dhaavai — "the yogi rises again and again and runs off." Bahurh bahurh — over and over. The seeker who relies on doing is trapped in a loop: do, find no peace, get up, do more, still no peace, get up again. The restless running is itself the symptom; the more you chase peace, the more you are running, and running is the opposite of rest.
This is bhram — the wandering, the restless doubt and seeking — laid bare. The yogi's endless travel is the outer mirror of an inner unsettledness that no destination can cure, because the unsettledness travels with him. You cannot walk far enough to leave your own restless self behind. The verse completes the demolition begun in P1: even the most extreme self-effort only deepens the running. The hands are now completely empty. Everything the seeker could do has been tried and found wanting. Only grace remains — and the next verse delivers it.
Why do you think simply "trying harder" sometimes makes us more restless instead of more peaceful? When have you needed to stop running rather than run faster?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI