Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Those who follow only their own minds never give up their pretending; loving "two" instead of the One, they suffer.
Forgetting the Naam, their minds are soaked in what spoils; they waste their lives for nothing.
This chance will not come into their hands again; day and night they will be sorry.
They die and are born, again and again, and never understand; they sink down into the muck.
When we pretend and forget the Naam, life slips by; but the chance to turn around is right now.
Manmukh pakhand kaday na chookai: the manmukh, a person led by self-will, never stops pretending. Pakhand means putting on a show. Caught in doojai bhaa-ay, a split, "me against you" way of seeing, they end up hurting. Forgetting the Naam, the mind fills with things that don't nourish, and the days slip away.
The verse uses hard pictures here: dying and being born again and again, rotting in filth. They show how stuck life can feel without the Naam. But there is hope inside the warning. Ih vaylaa fir hath na aavai: this moment will not come again. Think of a bus at your stop. It is here right now. So climb on.
What is something good you could start right now instead of putting off?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI