Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
The pure nectar comes from the Guru. And wherever the ego inside a person has died, there *no* attachment to **maya** can live. In such a person, the understanding is pure, the inner stillness is utterly pure, because they've settled the spotless **bani** deep in their mind.
The ego and our clinging are really one shadow. Take away the "me" that casts it, and both are gone at once.
Nirmal amrit gur tay paa-i-aa — the spotless amrit (sweet, life-giving nectar) is received from the Guru. Start here. The ego cannot get rid of the ego. A pair of scissors cannot cut itself. So letting go of the "me" is not a big act of our own willpower. It is a gift we receive from the Guru. We drink the pure nectar the Guru offers, and that is what melts the self. This keeps us humble. Even the great step of letting go of ego is not our trophy. It is grace.
The middle line is the engine of the whole song. Vichahu aap mu-aa tithai moh na maa-i-aa — where the aap (the self, the ego) has died inside, there is no moh (clinging) for maa-i-aa (the world of passing things). Sikhs call this jeevat marnaa, "dying while alive." It does not mean the body dies. It means the puffed-up "me" fades away while we go on living.
Here it works almost like a rule of nature. The ego and the clinging are the same thing seen twice. The ego is the one who does the clinging. So when the clinger is gone, there is no one left to cling. Think of a shadow on the wall. You do not have to scrub the shadow away. Move the thing that casts it, and the shadow is simply gone.
Then come two kinds of cleanness that the ego always muddied. Nirmal gi-aan Dhi-aan at nirmal — the gi-aan (understanding) is pure, and the Dhi-aan (inner stillness) is completely pure.
Why were they not pure before? Because the ego smudges everything. Even our "wisdom" was secretly bent toward what we wanted, like the scholar in another shabad whose learning only made him proud. Even our "quiet time" was a busy mind pretending to be calm. Once the ego is gone, understanding becomes clean. We see things as they really are, not as our wants twist them. And the stillness becomes real.
Think of a pair of smudged glasses and a pond stirred up with mud. Wipe the glasses and let the pond settle, and you finally see clearly. Nirmal banee man vasaavani-aa — and all of this rests on the pure Word living in the mind. That Word did the cleaning.
Can you think of a time your own wants secretly bent how you "saw" a situation? How might seeing without that bend look different?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI