Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Imagine wearing fire and ice instead of clothes, and living on nothing but the wind. Imagine even the most dazzling heavenly companions at your side — and remember, all of it passes away anyway.
Even then, I would want only you, and my longing to sing your praises would not lessen. Whatever comes and whatever goes, my love stays fixed on you.
The fourth and final shalok of the set gathers the extremes together and adds the key that unlocks all four. It imagines impossible hardship — fire and ice as my clothes, the wind my food — alongside impossible pleasure — the enticing heavenly beauties as my wives. Both at once: the harshest deprivation and the most seductive delight. And then comes the crucial phrase that the other three only implied: all this shall pass away!
There it is — the reason the love never wavers across all four scenarios. Everything passes. The milk-rivers and gold mountains pass; the power to stop the sun passes; the pain and the cruel kings pass; the fire-clothes and the heavenly companions pass. Every condition the four shaloks imagined, whether glorious or terrible, shares one quality: it is temporary. To anchor your love to any of them — to love the One more when things are good and less when things are bad — would be to anchor your heart to smoke. Only the One does not pass. So only the One is worth fixing the heart on.
And so the refrain lands for the last time: even then, I would worship and adore You, and my longing to chant Your Praises would not decrease. Taken together, the four shaloks are one of the most complete pictures of mature devotion in all of scripture. Pleasure cannot inflate this love; power cannot distract it; suffering cannot crush it; and the most seductive delights cannot turn it. Because the love is fixed not on any passing condition but on the one Reality that remains when all conditions have come and gone. Whatever comes and whatever goes, my love stays fixed on You.
What have you been loving 'more or less' depending on how things are going — and what would it mean to love something that doesn't pass?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI