Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
As long as I split the world into things I love and things I hate, closeness stays far away.
As long as I keep dividing 'me' from 'them,' I keep placing distance between myself and the Whole.
This one says: splitting the world into us and them keeps us far from the One.
This shabad is made of dutukay, verses of two lines each. Ja-o la-o bhaa-o abhaa-o ih maanai: as long as a person splits things into love and hate. Bhaa-o means liking, and abhaa-o means disliking. Then there is aan aapnaa, the habit of dividing "mine" from "theirs." These keep the One at arm's length.
This is Ik Onkar, "One Creator," lived out every day. If there is only one reality, then sorting everything into liked and disliked makes us feel separate. It's like drawing a chalk line down the playground and saying "that side isn't ours." The line was never there until we drew it.
The distance is not put on us from outside. We make it ourselves, and so we can also let it go.
Can you notice a time today when you decided you liked or disliked something almost instantly?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI