A rare shabad of self-examination, voiced on our behalf. The honest confession — pride, the glitter that "swallows" the soul, the engine of craving that always wants more (v.0); then the door — listen to the Teachings of the Holy, and the whole weight is washed away; the heart meant to receive stops repeating its painful cycles (v.1).
Key Vocabulary
Maya "like a witch" — read per the tradition's definition (Anand Sahib v.29): Maya is the forgetting itself, not money or matter.
lobh / craving — "more and more, yearns for more"; the engine of the off-centered heart.
suniai (implied) — the washing power of genuine listening (cf. Japji).
Translation Notes
"My foolish heart" and "Maya like a witch has swallowed my soul" are softened in the children's text to honest self-observation ("how easily I get caught," "the glitter can swallow me and make me forget") — keeping the confession without self-hatred, and defining Maya by its function (the forgetting) per philosophy.md's Maya as the Forgetting. "Womb of reincarnation" is rendered gently as breaking out of repeating painful cycles.
Themes and Cross-Connections
Self-examination-then-door mirrors B00C1533 and the Ninth Guru's shabad here (B00C1561). Listening-that-washes ties to Japji's suniai and Aasaa's "listen, O mind" (B00C914).
For Raag Todee
Models for children that naming a fault honestly is the first step out of it, not a verdict against you — and the remedy is receptive listening, not self-punishment.
"More and more, he continually yearns for more."
The Arc
A rare shabad of self-examination, voiced on our behalf. The honest confession — pride, the glitter that "swallows" the soul, the engine of craving that always wants more (v.0); then the door — listen to the Teachings of the Holy, and the whole weight is washed away; the heart meant to receive stops repeating its painful cycles (v.1).
Key Vocabulary
Translation Notes
"My foolish heart" and "Maya like a witch has swallowed my soul" are softened in the children's text to honest self-observation ("how easily I get caught," "the glitter can swallow me and make me forget") — keeping the confession without self-hatred, and defining Maya by its function (the forgetting) per philosophy.md's Maya as the Forgetting. "Womb of reincarnation" is rendered gently as breaking out of repeating painful cycles.
Themes and Cross-Connections
Self-examination-then-door mirrors B00C1533 and the Ninth Guru's shabad here (B00C1561). Listening-that-washes ties to Japji's suniai and Aasaa's "listen, O mind" (B00C914).
For Raag Todee
Models for children that naming a fault honestly is the first step out of it, not a verdict against you — and the remedy is receptive listening, not self-punishment.