Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
People come and go, wandering through lifetimes, following the trail of their past actions.
How do you erase what has already been written? The ledger runs according to the divine will.
Without the Name of the Lord, no one escapes this cycle. Through the Guru's teaching, union becomes possible.
Kirrat kamaay — acting according to accumulated karma (kirrat): past actions, the imprint of what has been done, shaping what comes next. The soul caught in the cycle of aavai jaai (coming and going, birth and death) is not being punished; it is following the natural consequence of its accumulated orientation. The river flows where it has carved its bed.
Poorab likhiaa ki-o mayteeai — how can one's pre-ordained destiny be erased? The question is genuine. The lekh (the writing, the decree) of past actions seems fixed — it was written before (poorab), it governs what comes. And the answer Guru Nanak gives is paradoxical: it cannot be erased by human effort alone, but it can be transcended through the Name. Not by pretending the karma doesn't exist, but by meeting the One whose will the karma reflects — and being transformed by that meeting.
Bin har naam na chhuteeai — without the Lord's Name, no one is freed. Absolute. The Name is not one option among several equivalent paths. Every other path, followed to its end, either leads to the Name or leaves the traveler still in the cycle.
Gurmat milai milaa-ay — through the Guru's teaching, union happens. Note the double milai milaa-ay (meets and is united): the soul meets and is united. The meeting produces the union. Not efforting — meeting. The distinction matters: you cannot will your way into this union. But you can meet the Guru. And meeting the Guru is the union.
Is there a pattern in your life that keeps repeating — and what would it take to break it rather than repeat it one more time?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI