Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Listen, listen, my friend, the Beloved of my heart: my mind and body are yours, and I give this whole life to you too.
May I never let you slip from my mind — you who hold up my very breath. I have come into your forever-shelter.
This shabad opens as an intimate address — Listen, listen, O my friend and companion, O Beloved of my mind — the doubled listen carrying the urgency of a heart that needs to be heard by the one it loves. The One is named, as so often in these Maajh shabads, not as a distant power but as friend, companion, Beloved — the dearest of intimates.
And to this Beloved the soul makes total self-offering: my mind and body are Yours. This life is a sacrifice to You as well. Everything is handed over — mind, body, the life itself. Then a prayer that is the deepest wish of these shabads: may I never forget God, the Support of the breath of life. Notice how the One is described — the Support of the breath of life, the very thing that holds up each breath. To forget the One would be to forget what keeps you breathing; so the soul prays only this, that it never let slip from mind the One on whom its every breath depends. And it rests in refuge: I have come to Your Eternal Sanctuary. The shabad's opening gives the whole posture of the devoted soul in a breath: the Beloved addressed as friend, the self wholly offered, the one prayer to never forget, and the soul come home to a sanctuary that does not end.
What is the one thing you'd most want never to forget — and is it as essential to you as your own breath?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI