Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
I serve my teacher and keep the One in mind, all day and all night.
I set down my pride, take shelter, and speak gently. For lifetime after lifetime I've felt far from you — and you are my truest Friend, so please bring me home.
A soul that feels cut off can't rest; I've searched every corner and found no comfort anywhere apart from you. And honestly — it was my own choices that built the distance. I won't blame anyone else. So have mercy and lift me; no one else can. Without you I'm just rolling in the dust — who else would I even cry out to? All I'm asking is this: let my eyes finally see you.
This opening stanza is a long, tender prayer, and at its heart lies one of the most honest and grown-up moments in all of Raag Maajh. After describing the soul's service and shelter and gentle speech, and the ache of feeling separated through countless lifetimes, the prayer turns and takes full responsibility for the distance: My own evil actions have kept me separate from Him; why should I accuse anyone else?
This single line quietly overturns a whole way of relating to suffering and separation. The prayer refuses to lay its separation at the One's door — it did not withdraw, withhold, or punish. The distance is owned as self-made, built by the soul's own turning-away. There is no one else to blame: not God, not fate, not other people. And far from being crushing, this honesty is freeing, because what you built is something you can stop building. If the One never moved, the way home begins with ceasing to turn away — and, as the very next lines plead, with the mercy only the One can bestow.
The rest of the prayer flows from this humility. The soul has searched and seen all realms and found no comfort apart from the One — the ordinary discovery that nothing else finally satisfies. It knows that mercy is the only way up: No one else can bestow Your Mercy. And it ends not with a grand demand but with the simplest, most childlike request: May my eyes behold the Lord. Just let me see you. After all the lifetimes and all the searching, the whole prayer narrows to that one ache — to lay eyes on the Beloved at last.
Is there a 'distance' in your life you've been blaming on others that you might, honestly, have had a hand in building?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI