Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Someone who never learns the difference between what harms and what heals stays stuck. Caught up in two-ness — chasing this and that instead of the One — they wander around lost and confused. Not seeing clearly, they don't know the way home, so they keep going round and round, over and over.
This is the dark mirror of the lit-up heart from the Rahao. If the awakened soul lives in "pargaas" (light), this stanza describes the soul still in the dark — "andhaa," blind, not because the eyes don't work, but because the inner seeing hasn't switched on. Guru Amar Das is describing the manmukh condition: the soul facing its own ego instead of the light, and therefore unable to find its way.
The root of the problem is named precisely: "doojai laagee" — attached to the second, to dooja, to two-ness. This is one of Guru Amar Das's central ideas. Dooja bhaav — the love of "the other," the sense that reality is split into many competing things to grab at — is the basic mistake. When you live in two-ness, you're forever divided: wanting this over that, me versus you, mine against yours. And a divided soul "bharam bhulaani" — wanders, deluded, lost. Bharam is the restless wandering of a mind with no center. Without the One as your center, you're scattered, pulled in every direction, never arriving (the "aavan jaavania" — coming and going — at the end).
Notice what Guru Amar Das does not say. He doesn't say these people are evil and deserve punishment. He says they're "agiaani andhaa" — unknowing and blind. The problem isn't wickedness; it's not being able to see. "Mag na jaanai" — they don't know the way, the path. You can't blame someone for taking the wrong road in the dark if no one's turned on the light for them. This is deeply compassionate: the manmukh isn't a villain, just someone who hasn't yet been shown the way home. And that's hopeful, too — because blindness can be cured. The very next stanza will show exactly how: through the Guru, the darkness lifts and even the heaviest doors swing open.
When you're pulled in many directions, wanting lots of competing things at once, how does it feel? What happens when you find one thing that matters most and lets the rest fall into place?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI