Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
You are the whole ocean, and I am a little fish swimming inside you. Your Name is the single raindrop, and I am the thirsty rain-bird waiting for it. You are everything I hope for; you are even the thirst I feel. My mind is dissolved completely into you — there is nowhere I end and you begin.
This Rahao gathers two of the most beloved images of Raag Maajh into a single breath, both speaking of total dependence. First the fish: toon jalnidh ham meen tumaare — "you are the jalnidh (ocean of water) and I am the meen (fish) within you." The fish has no life apart from the water; remove it from the water and it dies instantly (recall Shabad 2). Then the rain-bird: teraa naam boond ham chaatrik tikhhaare — "your Naam is the boond (raindrop) and I am the chaatrik (rain-bird), tikhhaare (thirsty)." The chaatrik will drink only the falling raindrop, and cries out for it (the signature image of Shabad 7).
But the third line goes further than either, into something extraordinary: tumree aas piaasaa tumree — "you are my aas (hope) and you are my piaasaa (thirst)." Read this slowly. The One is not only the water that satisfies; the One is also the thirst itself. The very longing the seeker feels for the Beloved was placed in her by the Beloved. The hunger and the food, the thirst and the drink, the longing and the longed-for — all are the One. This dissolves the last separation: even your desire for the divine is the divine, working in you, drawing you home.
The closing phrase seals it: tum hee sang man leenaa — "my mind is leenaa (absorbed, dissolved, merged) in you alone." Leenaa is the word for a thing that has melted into another and lost its separate boundary, like salt in water. Many readers hear in this the deepest Ik Onkar: not "I love you from over here," but a nearness in which the separate "here" is no longer felt — the thirst, the hope, the seeker, and the sought no longer standing apart. The Rahao establishes the shabad's whole register: utter dependence that, on closer look, reads as profound union.
The verse says the One is even "your thirst" — the longing itself comes from what you long for. Have you ever felt that a deep wanting was somehow pulling you toward exactly where you needed to go?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI