Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
There is no point counting up one, two, three, four — naming the lost ones one by one — because the whole world is fooled by the very same temptations.
Only a rare soul truly loves the Name; only a rare heart is in full bloom.
This stanza widens the portrait from the individual sleeper to the whole world. Why bother to count one, two, three, four? There is no use tallying up the entranced and the greedy one by one, as if they were exceptions — because the whole world is defrauded by the same enticements. The trance is not a rare affliction; it is the near-universal condition. The same handful of enticements — Maya's glittering lures — have fooled, more or less, everyone. To point at this lost soul and that one is to miss the scale of it: the spell is on the world.
And against that vast, defrauded multitude, the rarity of the awake: hardly anyone loves the Lord's Name; how rare is that place which is in bloom. The image is lovely and sober at once — most of the field is dry and dormant, and only here and there is a heart in bloom, a soul that actually loves the Name rather than merely hearing about it. Guru Arjan is not being cynical; he is being honest about how rare genuine awakening is, precisely to make the blooming heart precious and to stir the reader toward becoming one. In a world where the same enticements have defrauded almost everyone, to be a heart in bloom — to actually love the Name — is a rare and beautiful thing, worth becoming whatever the odds.
In a world mostly fooled by 'the same enticements,' what would it take for your own heart to come into bloom?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI