Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Come together with me, you whose hearts are awake — you are my brothers and sisters. Show me the way to the One, because I am so hungry for it, hungry the way you get when you have not eaten all day. Life of the whole world, great giver — please answer the trust I am placing in you. When I finally see you, my whole mind drinks it in and is full.
This Rahao names the central engine of the shabad: bhukh — hunger. Mai bhukh lagaaee — "I am so hungry for the Lord." The seeker is not curious about the divine; she is starving for it. This is viraha in its most bodily form — longing felt as appetite. And hunger, unlike idle wanting, moves you; it makes you seek.
The seeker turns first to the har jan sant — the servants and saints, addressed as bhaaee, kin. The path to the divine runs through the awakened company; she asks them to point the way (dashu — "tell me"). This is Sat Sangat as the first step. Then she turns directly to the divine — jagjeevan daate, "Life of the World, Great Giver" — and offers her sardhaa (faith, trust) to be fulfilled. Faith here is not belief in propositions; it is the trusting hunger that leans toward what will feed it.
The fulfillment comes through darshan — the blessed seeing. Mil har darshan man bheejai — meeting the divine's sight, the mind becomes bheejai, drenched, soaked through, like dry ground in the first rain. That word bheejai will return as the keynote of the whole shabad: the soaking of a thirsty mind.
What are you genuinely hungry for — not food, but something your heart keeps reaching toward? What feeds it?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI