Abundance's Danger Is Forgetting the Giver

Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa

The shabad returns, as it promised, to its one request — and now we see why it has been listing all those gifts. Having received consciousness (P1) and every comfort (P2), the seeker asks for the one gift that makes all the others meaningful: saa budh deejai jit visrahi naahee — "give me the kind of budh (mind/intellect) by which I will not forget you"; saa mat deejai jit tudh dhiaaee — "give me the kind of mat (understanding) by which I keep remembering you." The danger, the verse implies, is that the very abundance of gifts can make us forget the giver. Comfort breeds forgetfulness. So she asks not to be released from the gifts, but to be given a mind that stays grateful amid them.

The image of constant remembrance is breathtaking in its simplicity: saas saas tere gun gaavaa — "with each saas (breath), let me sing your qualities." Not at special times, not in special places, but with every breath — remembrance woven into the most automatic, continuous act of being alive. This is simran at its fullest reach: as constant as breathing, so that to live and to remember become the same motion. Each inhale and exhale carries the Name.

And the final resting place: ot Naanak gur charnaa — "Nanak's ot (shelter, support, refuge) is the gur charnaa (the Guru's feet)." After the whole catalogue of gifts, the seeker's ultimate support is not any of them — not food, not comfort, not even consciousness itself — but the humble shelter of the Guru's feet (recall the dust of Shabad 16). The gifts are good, but they are not where she rests; she rests in the Guru, the one who can give her the gift of never forgetting. The arc completes: prayer to never forget (Rahao), wonder at the gift of awareness (P1), gratitude for daily comforts (P2), and the return to the one request — a mind that remembers with every breath, sheltered at the Guru's feet. Signed with the lineage's name, Nanak. Gratitude, fully grown, asks only to keep being grateful.