Like the Musk-Deer, We Hunt Outside for What's Within
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
The deer carries sweet-smelling musk inside its own body — but it runs all through the forest searching for the scent.
That's how we are: we look everywhere outside for the good, worn out, until we find it was inside us all along.
A landmark image, one of Gurbani's most beautiful: "within the deer is the heavy fragrance of musk, but he is deluded, and shakes his horns looking for it — wandering through the forests... then in my own home, the Perfect Guru saved me." The musk-deer carries the very fragrance it desperately hunts for inside its own body, yet searches the whole forest for it. That's us: we search everywhere outside for the good, exhausting ourselves, when it was within us all along. For a child: like the deer that carries sweet musk inside itself yet searches the whole forest for the smell, we hunt everywhere for the good that's already inside us.
What good thing might be inside you already, that you sometimes search for outside?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI