Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Pour water into a jug, and it looks like its own little pool. It seems separate from the sea, shaped by the walls around it.
Nanak says: tip the jug out into the water, and that water simply joins the great water again.
We are like water in a jug: it only looks separate from the rest of the water.
Fill a kumbh, a pitcher, with water, and that water seems to be its own thing. The pitcher is like haumai, the feeling of being a separate "me." Its walls only make the water look different. It was always the same water.
Ambhai ambh milo — when the pitcher is emptied, water mixes with water again.
This is a gentle answer to the ending in the verse before. Emptying the jug is not a loss. It is a homecoming, like a wave remembering it was always the ocean. Think of an ice cube melting in a glass. It does not disappear. It becomes one with the water around it.
Does it feel frightening or freeing to imagine you are part of something much larger?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI