Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
I would give everything I am for the people who fix their whole attention on the One. They are not scattered in a hundred directions; they are gathered onto the One.
Following the Guru's teaching, my own restless mind finally found its way back to the only home it ever truly had. There it got dyed all the way through in the True Color of the One's love — a color that never washes out.
This is the Rahao, the "pause" line — the center of the whole shabad. Its message: gather your heart onto the One.
Ha-o vaaree — I would give myself for those who do this. What do they do? Ikas si-o chit laavani-aa — they join the mind to the One. The world in the next verse scatters itself across a thousand wants. Gurbani calls this duja bhaav, the pull of "the second thing" — anything other than the One. The cure is the opposite move: pull all that scattered attention back onto the One. Picture a phone with fifty apps open, draining the battery. Close them, and it runs calm and cool.
Then comes a tender picture: man ikat ghar aa-i-aa — the mind came to its one home. The restless mind is not a wrongdoer to be punished. It is like a child who wandered off at a fair and finally found the way back. Peace, sahaj, is a homecoming, not a prize you win. This is where the soul truly lives. We just got lost on the way.
Last comes the great Maajh picture of rang, which means color or dye. Sachai rang rangaavin-aa — dyed in the True Color. Teachers often compare two dyes. The world's colors are kachaa, cheap dye that fades when trouble or time washes over it. The dye of real love for the One, soaked in through the Guru's teaching, is pakkaa — fast color that reaches the core of the cloth. Whatever colors you deeply also changes you. The only question is which color you let soak in.
Your attention is getting "dyed" by whatever you give it to all day — what color is soaking into you, and will it last?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI