Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
This is the world's whole drama — that he never turns his mind to the Name.
In an instant this false play will vanish; my mind, hold the One instead. He never thinks of the moment when the end will come to seize him. Nanak says: the One saves the person in whose heart, by mercy, it comes to live.
The Pause verse names the "drama" plainly: absorbed in the false play, the striver "does not contemplate the Lord's Name," and "in an instant, all this false play shall perish." The remedy is the raag's steady one — turn the mind to the One now, before the show ends. And the close is tender, not condemning: salvation comes to "one within whose heart the Lord, in His Kind Mercy, dwells" — it is mercy that saves, not a verdict that condemns. The mirror is held up so we might turn while there is time.
What 'false play' are you deeply absorbed in? What would turning some attention to what lasts look like?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI