Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
The beloved is far away, and the bride is dressing up in fine clothes and jewels anyway.
That is what the blind, self-centered ones are doing. They win no honor in this world, and find no shelter in the next. They waste their precious lives.
This verse is a picture: a bride dressing up beautifully for a husband who isn't even there.
It uses the bride-and-beloved language that runs all through Raag Maajh, where the soul is the bride and the One is the Beloved. Pir pardays sigaar banaa-ay means "the husband is far away, and she puts on her finery." Pir is the husband, the Beloved. Sigaar is dressing up: jewels, fine clothes, every lovely thing. Picture how odd and sad that is. All that effort, and the one she is dressing up for isn't in the room. It is like setting a beautiful birthday table for a guest who was never invited.
Guru Amar Das says exactly what the picture means. Manmukh andh aisay karam kamaa-ay means "the blind, self-centered ones act just like this." A manmukh faces their own ego instead of the light. The bride dressing up for an absent husband is the soul doing outward religion while the One is missing from its heart. All the ritual, reputation and show from the earlier verses, gathered into one picture. It is blind because it can't see the obvious. Without the Beloved there, the finery is pointless. What good is a beautifully decorated life with no One in it?
The result is complete. Halat na sobhaa palat na dho-ee means "no honor in this world, no shelter in the next." Birthaa janam gavaavni-aa means "they waste their lives in vain." The display wins nothing, because from the start it was decoration around an empty space.
This ties to a lesson that runs through these songs of Guru Amar Das. Outer decoration, whether of the body, the reputation or a long list of religious deeds, is worth nothing without the One truly present inside. Elsewhere in this raag, the true bride is dressed in the Shabad, the Guru's Word, and her Beloved lives in her heart. This verse shows her shadow: dressed in the world, with her Beloved nowhere inside. So first make sure the One is truly present in your heart. Then all the rest has someone to be for.
Where might you be 'dressing up' the outside of your life while the One thing that would give it meaning is absent from the inside?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI