Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
The One gives the dizzy drink and lets people wander, born again and again.
They do not remember the One even for a blink, and so the Messenger of Death troubles them.
There is a pull in life that makes us forget, and that forgetting is what wears us down.
Thag-uree is a drink that makes you dizzy and confused. Here it is the spell of maya, the pull of the passing world. The verse says the One gives this drink. The way to hear that is that the pull is woven into life itself. It is not a trick played on us.
The person under the spell does not remember the One, not even for a nimakh, one blink. So they go around and around, born again and again.
Jamkankar is the Messenger of Death, who the verse says makes such a person suffer. It is best heard as the unsettled, wandering feeling of a forgetful life, not a figure to be afraid of. Forgetting, not punishment, is what quietly wears us down. Think of forgetting to charge your phone. Nobody punishes you. It just runs down, a little at a time.
What helps you remember what matters when the world is pulling hard at you?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI