Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
People read and recite until they're worn out, but peace never comes. Burned up by endless craving, they have no real understanding. They keep buying poison, they're *thirsty* for the wrong things, and telling lies along the way, they swallow poison instead of nectar.
This verse says: if you are thirsty for peace, drinking from the wrong well only makes you thirstier.
It is the dark mirror of the whole song. It answers the last verse, which said the One can't be found in a record book. Parh parh thaakay saant na aa-ee means "they read and read until they are worn out, but peace doesn't come." All that reading brought tiredness, not peace, because it was the wrong tool. It tried to measure what can't be measured and catch in books what only the Word and praise can reach. You can study a restaurant menu all night and still go home hungry. Reading about the nectar is not drinking it.
Why does the reading fail? Tarisnaa jaalay sudh na kaa-ee means "burned by craving, they have no understanding." Tarisnaa means thirst, craving. Here is the deep point. The reading itself isn't the problem. The problem is that under the reading, the craving was never quieted. They read holy words while still on fire with wanting: wanting to look smart, wanting to be important, wanting more. So the words slid over a grabbing heart and never soaked in. Knowledge poured on a craving mind is like a cup of water tossed on a roaring fire. It disappears and changes nothing.
Then comes a hammering word: bikh, poison, three times in one line. Bikh bihaajheh means "they buy poison." Bikh moh pi-aasay means "they are thirsty for the poison of clinging." Koorh bol bikh khaavani-aa means "telling lies, they eat poison." Koorh means lies, falseness.
The last song set nectar against poison, both found in the same world. The sad part here is that these people really are thirsty. They have real spiritual hunger and real longing. But they keep drinking at the wrong well. They want peace and reach for poison. They want to feel full and swallow clinging and lies instead. It isn't that they aren't looking. They are looking in exactly the wrong direction, drinking what makes the thirst worse. That is the saddest kind of being lost: not being lazy, but trying hard the wrong way. The cure isn't to stop wanting peace. It is to drink from the true well: the shabad, the Guru's Word, the praise, the One inside.
Have you ever tried to fix a bad feeling with something that secretly made it worse? What would the "nectar" version have been instead?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI