Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
In Maagh, I become pure. I know that the holy place of pilgrimage is inside me.
I have met my truest Friend gently and easily; I gather up all that is good in the Beloved and rest close.
Listen, my beautiful Beloved: I sing Your praises and lose myself in You. If it pleases You, I bathe in the sacred pool deep within.
The Ganga, the Jamuna, the place where three rivers meet, the seven seas, charity, giving and worship: all of it rests in the One.
Age after age, I come to know the same One.
Nanak says: in Maagh, the sweetest thing of all is to remember the One. That is the bath at all sixty-eight holy places.
The holiest place you could ever travel to is already inside you.
Maagh is the month around January and February. It is the season when many people travel to bathe in holy rivers. The most famous spot is the Sangam, the meeting place of the Ganga, the Jamuna and the hidden Saraswati river.
Guru Nanak honors those places. Then he points somewhere closer. Tirath antar jaani-aa: "I know the sacred shrine is within me." A tirath is a place of pilgrimage, a holy place people journey to.
Think of looking all over the house for your glasses, and then finding them on your head the whole time. What you were searching for was with you all along.
The rivers, the giving to others, the worship: none of it is mocked. It is all gathered up and found complete in the One. Jug jug ayko jaataa: "age after age, I come to know the same One." So in Maagh, remembering the Beloved is the bath. It washes you as if you had bathed at every holy place at once.
Where do you go, inside yourself, when you want to feel calm and clean and clear?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI