Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
By myself, I cannot settle anything at all.
I run around after one task and then another.
I get tangled up in a hundred other things.
On our own, we can't make the deepest things happen, however busy we get.
This is the rahaa-o, the "pause" line, the center of the shabad. Apunee itnee kachhoo na saaree — by ourselves, we can't settle anything that really matters. Dhaavrataa means running around restlessly. Janjaaree means getting tangled up.
This is not putting yourself down. It is an honest look at haumai, the ego. The ego believes it runs everything on its own power. Think of a hamster on a wheel: running hard, very tired, and still in the same place. The ego wears itself out trying.
When have you run around busy all day and still felt you missed what mattered most?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI