Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
The person whose heart has caught fire with loving devotion sings about the One day and night, and stays wide awake inside — alert, alive, paying attention. The One reaches out, takes them by the hand, and draws them right into itself. This happens for the one whose deepest destiny has finally come due.
The phrase to sit with here is "nit jaagee" — always awake. Not awake as in not sleeping, but awake as in aware, present, not sleepwalking through life. Most of us go through our days half-asleep — running on autopilot, distracted, reacting without really noticing. Guru Arjan says the heart filled with "prem bhagat" — loving devotion — wakes up. Love does that. When you love someone deeply, you notice everything about them, you're alert to their presence; the world sharpens. Devotion is love pointed at the One, and it makes you fully awake to the One in everything. That's the opposite of the half-dead "fading" person from the last verse who was sleepwalking after false gifts.
And notice the word "prem" — love. This isn't dutiful, grim religion. It's devotion that has become love, "lagee" — caught, kindled, like a flame catching. The remembrance "andin" (day and night) isn't a chore being performed; it's what happens naturally when you're in love and can't stop thinking of the Beloved. The whole posture of qMonk practice is here: not forcing yourself to be good, but falling in love and letting the love keep you awake.
Then the tender image, repeated from earlier shabads: "baah pakarh tis suaamee melai" — the One takes them by the hand and draws them in. You don't climb up to the One by your own effort. The One reaches down. This is gurprasad, grace. The phrase "jis kai mastak lahnaa" — whose destiny has come due — can sound like fatalism, but read it gently: the "lahnaa" is something owed to you, like a debt finally being repaid. The love that wakes in your heart is itself the sign that the moment has arrived, the long-prepared meeting finally happening. You don't have to wonder if you're "chosen" — if the love is stirring in you, the hand is already reaching.
When you love something or someone, you naturally pay closer attention. What would your ordinary day look like if you moved through it wide awake instead of on autopilot?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI