O Nanak, the Lord and Master is the Truest of the True. While we meditate on Him, we see Him. ||1||
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
In plain words
The cotton is cleaned, spun and woven; the cloth is laid out, washed and bleached white.
The tailor cuts it with scissors and sews it with thread.
Just so, Nanak says, torn honor is sewn up again by praising the One, and you live a true life.
Cloth wears out and tears; with needle and thread it is sewn again.
Yet it will not last a month, or even a week; it barely lasts an hour, or a moment.
But Truth does not grow old, and once it is stitched, it never tears again.
Nanak says: the Master is the Truest of the True. As long as you remember the One, you see the One.
Ordinary cloth always tears again, but truth, once stitched in, never does.
The deeper layer
Cloth is cleaned, spun, woven, washed, cut and stitched, and yet it always tears again in time. Honor can tear too, and praise of the One is the needle and thread that mends it, so that one lives a true life. Ordinary cloth wears out, but sach, Truth, never grows old, and once stitched in it never tears again.
This First Mehl shalok, built on the tailor's work, is one of the tender landmarks of the Vaar.
A Question to Sit With
What in you would you like to mend so well it never tears again?
