Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
O mind — love the Lord the way the chakvee duck loves the sun she cannot see.
She does not sleep, not even for an instant. The sun is far away — it is night — but she feels it as if it were right here.
The self-centered mind cannot understand this. But the Gurmukh knows: the Lord is always close.
The chakvee (ruddy shelduck) is the female of the chakva-chakvi pair. In classical Indian devotional poetry, the male and female are said to be separated each night and reunited at dawn — a poetic expression of the unbearable separation that makes dawn the most longed-for moment in the day. The chakvee does not sleep through the night; she cannot. She keeps vigil for the sun that will bring reunion.
Khin pal need na sov-ee — she does not sleep for even an instant or a moment. The wakefulness is not willpower or discipline — it is love. She cannot sleep because the beloved is absent and the longing is too acute. Sleep would require a quiet that the longing makes impossible.
Jaanai door hajoor — she knows the sun is far, yet feels it near. This is the paradox: what the eye sees (darkness, distance, absence) and what the heart knows (the beloved is never truly far, the sun is always the sun even in the night). The manmukh can only know what they can see — for them, what is absent does not exist. The Gurmukh understands: sadaa hajoor (always present). Even in the darkest night, even in the farthest apparent separation, the Lord is near.
The five love-metaphors have now been given. Reading them together: (1) the lotus blossoms through turbulence; (2) the fish needs more and more; (3) the chatrik waits with perfect specificity; (4) the water bears the heat for the milk; (5) the chakvee keeps vigil through the night. Five different aspects of the same love: persistent, increasing, non-substitutable, self-sacrificing, and wakeful.
Is there something you keep faith with even when you cannot see it — and what allows you to feel its nearness in the dark?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI