Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
When I let go of what is real and grab hold of what only pretends to be real, my precious days slip through my fingers.
It is easy to just fill my stomach, coast along half-asleep, and never wake up to what my life is for.
But I do not have to live that way. I can wake up. I can choose the real.
saach chhaad kai jhoothah laagio — abandoning truth, clinging to the false; janam akaarath — the human birth spent in vain; pas kee niaa-ee soio — sleeping like an animal, living only for appetite, unaware. Rendered gently: the call is to wake up, not a condemnation. Sach (the real) versus jhooth (the passing) runs under the whole shabad.
What is something real you would like to wake up to more often?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI