Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
What a lucky thing a tongue is, when it gets to sing the One's praises — there's no finer use for a voice.
Praising the Name makes you dear to the True One. The people turned toward the teaching stay soaked in that love always, and meeting the True One, they quietly shine.
This one says the best thing a voice can do is praise.
After the heights of the out-of-reach One, the song comes back to something as close as the tongue in your mouth. Rasnaa gunvantee gun gaavai — worthy is the tongue that sings the One's good qualities. A voice can do many things: argue, show off, complain, gossip. The best thing, the thing that makes it worthy, is to praise. Guru Ram Das is quietly asking what we use our voices for.
And praise doesn't only go one way. It changes the person praising. Naam salaahay sachay bhaavai — praising the Naam, the Name, you become dear to the True One. Turning your voice toward thanks and wonder slowly turns your whole self toward the One. You grow close to what you praise, because praising shapes you. Think of a kid who keeps cheering for a kind teammate. Before long, they start being that kind themselves. We become like what we love.
The last line shows how such a person stays: gurmukh sadaa rahai rang raatee — the gurmukh, the one who faces the light, stays dyed in love always. Rang is color, like a dye that soaks all the way in and never washes out. This color picture keeps coming back in Raag Maajh: not a passing mood, but a lasting color through the whole person. And mil sachay sobhaa paavani-aa — meeting the True One, they gain honor, a quiet glow. A worthy tongue, a heart dear to the One, a color that lasts, a quiet shine: a whole life built around what it chooses to praise.
If your voice mostly shapes you in the direction of what it dwells on, what is it shaping you toward lately?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI