Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Keep the kind One in mind always — again and again, without letting it slip from your thoughts.
When you keep the company of the holy, the fear of death loses its grip on you. Pack the **Name** as your food for the road, and not even a smudge will cling to you, or to the people you love.
This song opens with its Rahao built right into the first stanza — a single, steady instruction that the whole song will unfold: Continually, continuously, remember the Merciful Lord. Never forget Him from your mind. Before any teaching about results or rewards, there is just this simple, repeatable practice: keep the kind One in mind, again and again, the way you keep someone you love in your thoughts even while your hands are busy. The word continually, continuously matters — this is not an occasional ritual but a quiet, ongoing companionship.
Then the first promise: Join the Society of the Saints, and you shall not have to go down the path of Death. The Sant company is the setting where remembrance grows, and its fruit is freedom from the jam panth, the fearful road of death. This is not mainly about the afterlife; it is about being released, here and now, from the dread that shadows a forgetful life. Among those who remember the One, the terror of ending loosens its grip.
The stanza closes with a travel-image that will run through the song: Take the Provisions of the Lord's Name with you. Life is a journey, and the Name is the food you pack for the road — the one provision that actually sustains the soul along the way. And carrying it, no stain shall attach itself to your family — the cleanness it brings is not private; it extends to those bound to you. The one who travels with the Name keeps not only themselves but their whole circle unsmudged.
What would it look like to keep something good 'continually in mind' through an ordinary day, the way you carry a loved one in your thoughts?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI