Ask Like a Child; the Giver Never Runs Out

Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa

This stanza models a posture: how to be in relationship with the One. Baarik vaangee hau sabh kichh mangaa — "like a baarik (small child), I ask for everything." Notice the freedom in this. A small child does not calculate whether it deserves to ask; it does not worry about being a burden; it simply asks, openly, for whatever it needs, trusting the parent completely. The seeker is invited into exactly this childlike trust — no embarrassment, no proud self-reliance, just open asking.

And the parent never runs out: dede tot naahee prabh rangaa — "in giving, there is no tot (shortage, lack); the One is rangaa (full of color, abundant, wondrous)." This echoes the akhut bhandaaraa (inexhaustible storehouse) from chapter Shabad 7. The divine's giving is not a limited supply you might use up by asking too much. Ask freely; the well never empties. This is the opposite of the world's scarcity, where every gift to one is taken from another.

The response to such generosity is pairee pai pai bahut manaaee — "falling at the feet again and again, I please/win over [the One]." This is not groveling; it is the repeated, glad bowing of gratitude and love. Pai pai — over and over — like the repeated refrains we have seen, love that cannot stop expressing itself. And again the tender name: deen daiaal gopaala — merciful to the lowly, sustainer of the world. The verse paints the whole relationship: the soul as a trusting child who asks without limit, the One as a parent who gives without limit, and the bowing that flows naturally between them. To approach the infinite is not to earn or to fear, but to ask like a child of a parent who delights in giving.