Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Can anyone really see the One with their physical eyes? No — and so, for a while, my mind and body ached, sad and low; a soul without its Beloved just withers, like a plant with no water.
But meeting the holy, I found my One, my closest friend; the very Life of the world came to meet me, and now the long night of my life passes in peace.
This stanza names the pain of separation honestly before it names the relief. It opens with a real question: has anyone ever seen the Lord God with his eyes? No physical eye has ever seen the One — and that invisibility is part of what makes the longing so painful. The soul aches for a Beloved it cannot see, and the ache shows: my mind and body are sad and depressed... without her Husband Lord, the soul-bride is withering away. The image of withering — kumlaa, drying up like a plant deprived of water — is the very picture of viraha, separation-longing, the central emotion of Maajh. The unwatered soul droops and fades.
And then the turn, through the Saints: meeting the Saints, I have found my Lord God, my Companion, my Best Friend. The Beloved that no eye could see is found through the company of the holy — they are the water the withering plant needed. And the result is one of the loveliest lines in these shabads: the night of my life now passes in peace. The long dark night of separation — sleepless, aching, withering — is over; the soul, having found its Friend, passes its nights now in peace. The withered plant, watered at last by the company of the Saints, lifts its head; the dark night, lit by the meeting, becomes restful. Separation acknowledged, and separation healed.
When you've felt 'withered' by missing something essential, what was the 'water' — the company or practice — that revived you?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI