Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
The body that has no love for the Name is infested from the inside — with ego and endless conflict.
Without the Guru, no real wisdom comes. Every other taste, compared to the Name, is poison.
Without virtue, nothing is useful. The taste of Maya is bland and insipid.
Jit tan naam na bhaav-ee, tit tan haumai vaad — the body that does not appreciate the Naam is infested with egotism (haumai) and conflict (vaad — argument, dispute, ego-driven chatter). The Name is not just pleasant — it is what keeps the body from being infested. The absence of the Name does not produce a neutral state; it produces a specific pathology: ego filling the space the Name would occupy, and conflict as the natural result of ego meeting ego.
Bikhiaa doojaa saad — other tastes are bikhiaa (poison). The Sanskrit root visha (poison): what looks like it might satisfy but actually harms. The world's other tastes are not harmless alternatives to the Name — they are toxic substitutes that damage the soul's ability to taste what it actually needs.
Maai-aa feekaa saad — the taste of Maya is feekaa (bland, flat, insipid). After the Name, Maya is flavorless. This is experiential description, not a rule about giving things up: those who have genuinely tasted the Name find that everything else loses its intensity. Not that the world becomes ugly — it becomes flat, like eating unseasoned food after a full meal. The Name has recalibrated the palate. Maya's promises of satisfaction become increasingly unconvincing to the person who has touched the real thing.
Is there something you genuinely love that has made everything else feel a little flat by comparison — and what does that tell you?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI