Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
A life that never once turns toward the True Guru can slip by completely unused.
What a loss that is, when this human life is such a rare and precious chance.
Those who face only their own ego forget the **Name**. Without the Name, a person hurts in a place nothing else can reach, an emptiness only the One can fill.
This one is a sad song about a precious chance going unused. It is grief, not anger.
Satgur na sayvay so kaahay aa-i-aa — the one who doesn't serve the True Guru, why did they even come? The question aches. It's how you might speak about someone you love who let a once-in-a-lifetime chance slip by. Dharig jeevan birthaa janam gavaa-i-aa — Dharig is a strong word, like "what a shame." It points not at the person's worth but at the waste. A life let slip away, unused.
Behind this sadness is a deep belief: being born human is hugely precious. Of all the kinds of life, this one can wake up and know the One. To go through it asleep is to miss what it was for. Think of getting a ticket to the best concert in the world and spending the whole time in the parking lot. That is the grief in these lines.
The reason is named gently: manmukh naam chit na aavai — the manmukh, the one facing only their own ego, doesn't keep the Naam, the Name, in mind. Bin naavai baho dukh paavani-aa — without the Name, they hurt a great deal. The hurt isn't a sentence handed down from outside. It is the emptiness of a soul that has forgotten where it came from. There is a hunger in every heart that only the One can fill. The manmukh keeps trying to feed it with everything else, and stays hungry. How much it hurts shows how much the Name was meant to fill.
What would it mean to treat this life as a rare chance for something — and what is the something you'd most want not to miss?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI