The Scattered Mind Is a Worm Born in Poison

Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa

This verse says a mind pulled in every direction is like a little worm that has never known anything but mud.

It moves from the reader who misses to the restless mind underneath. Ih man chanchal vas na aavai means "this restless mind can't be held steady." Chanchal means jumpy, never still. Anyone who has tried to sit quietly knows this. The mind won't stay put. It hops from thought to thought like a kid flipping through channels.

The cause is named. Dubidhaa laagai dah dis dhaavai means "stuck in two-ness, it runs off in ten directions." Dubidhaa is a split heart, facing two ways at once. Because the mind is turned toward the many things of the world, it gets pulled a thousand ways. North, south, up, down, all ten directions, never resting in the One.

Then comes a hard, strong picture that Guru Amar Das uses more than once in this raag. Bikh kaa keerhaa bikh meh raataa means "a worm of poison, soaked in poison." Bikh hee maahi pachaavani-aa means "in that very poison, it rots away." The mind soaked in Maya, the pull of the world, is like a worm born in filth, soaked through with it, slowly wearing away in it.

The picture is meant to feel uncomfortable. But it is kind, not scornful. The sad thing about the worm is that it doesn't know. Born in the muck, it can't picture clean air or open sky. It isn't wicked. It has just never been shown there is anything else. That is a mind so wrapped up in the world that it can't imagine the sweetness it is missing. It thinks the muck is just normal.

So this verse is a wake-up call. The restless, scattered mind doesn't have to stay in the muck, however normal it feels. There is fresh air it has never breathed. The whole point of the Shabad, the Guru's Word, is to show it the way out.