Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
This life is a rare and precious gift — so hard to receive, and so easy to trade away for something almost worthless, like handing over a jewel for a plain shell.
Picture going to a market to buy the finest perfume and coming home with a sack of dust and prickly weeds instead. It is a nudge to notice what we are filling our days with.
This rare human life is like a trip to a market, where it is easy to choose wrong.
Dulabh janam chirankaal paa-i-o — this hard-to-get life came after a very long time. Gurbani calls human life dulabh, hard to obtain, so that we treasure it.
Kaathooree ko gaahak aa-i-o — the shopper came for musk, a rare perfume, and carried home dust and thistles instead. Think of saving up for months for something you love, then spending it all on snacks on the way to the store.
If your days were coins, what would you most want to spend them on?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI