Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Even the old scriptures themselves shout it out loud: this whole shimmering world is made of those three threads.
But people turned toward *two-ness* don't catch it — they read all about the three and still miss the One standing behind them. Knowing the words without understanding them just leaves you hurting.
This stanza is almost a restatement of the one before it, and the repetition is the point — Guru Amar Das is pressing on the same bruise, because it is the central confusion he wants to heal. Vayd pukaarai tribidh maa-i-aa — the Vedas themselves proclaim, loudly, that Maya is tribidh, of three modes. The scripture is not wrong. It announces the truth of the three qualities clearly. The failure is entirely on the side of the reader.
Manmukh na boojheh doojai bhaa-i-aa — the ego-led, in love with duality, do not understand. They have the information and miss the meaning. They can recite that the world is threefold and never make the one move that matters: looking past the three to har ayk, the One. To read of the three and not know the One is to count the waves forever and never notice the ocean.
And the consequence is stated flatly, without drama: bin boojhay dukh paavania — without understanding, only pain. This is the same dukh the manmukh-pandit suffered in the very first stanza — the song has come full circle, deliberately. All the reading in the world, absent the one understanding, deposits you exactly where you started: hurting, and not knowing why.
Have you ever 'known' something in words long before you actually understood it in your bones?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI