Something Turns Right-Side Up When the Grasping Self Grows Quiet
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
When I meet the true teaching, something turns right-side up inside me.
The grasping self grows quiet while I am fully, vividly alive — and suddenly things make sense.
Teacher and student become one thing then: one light simply blending into a larger light.
Du-tukas means two-line stanzas. Ultee bhaee is the great reversal — attention turning from outward grasping back toward its own source (a cousin of the ulat-baasee, “upside-down speech,” of the mystics). Jeevat marai, literally “dead while alive,” is read here without any dread: the grasping self grows quiet while the person is fully, vividly alive. And jotee jot milaaay — the student's light merging into the teacher's — is oneness itself: no real gap between guru and Sikh.
Has learning something ever flipped the way you see everything, like turning a picture right-side up?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI