Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
I would give myself away, again and again, forever — to you, my friend, my closest companion, my beloved. There is no end to how much I would give.
The refrain returns, the heartbeat between the verses — hau gholee hau ghol ghumaaee — "I am a sacrifice, utterly a sacrifice." But notice the small change: where the first Rahao (P1) was offered to the darshan (the sight) of the beloved, this one is offered to the gur sajan meet muraare — the beloved as friend and intimate companion. The object of devotion has deepened from the seeing of the beloved to the person of the beloved, the friend.
This is how love grows across the shabad. Each Rahao re-offers the self, but to a fuller and fuller sense of the Beloved. First it was the longed-for sight; now it is the cherished friend. The repetition is not redundancy — it is the lover saying "I am yours" over and over, the way real love keeps renewing its vow with each breath.
The doubling hau... hau ("I... I") and ghol ghumaaee (sacrifice and turn-around, dissolve completely) intensifies the surrender. In viraha, the lover cannot stop declaring devotion; the longing itself keeps overflowing into these refrains of self-offering. The Rahao is where the heart catches its breath and pledges itself again.
Why do you think people who love each other keep saying it, over and over, even when both already know? What does the repeating do?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI