Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
In the three qualities — passion, inertia, and even goodness — intuitive balance is not obtained. They lead to delusion and doubt.
What is the point of all the reading, studying, and debating, if you lose your roots?
In the fourth state — beyond all three qualities — intuitive balance is obtained. The Gurmukhs gather it in.
Trai gun maa-i-aa sahj na ho-ay, bharam-ay bhulai khai — in the three qualities (trai gun — the three modes of Maya: rajas/passion, tamas/inertia, sattva/purity-and-goodness) of Maya, sahj is not obtained; one wanders in delusion (bharm-ay bhulai). This is a philosophically critical statement: even sattva — the quality of goodness, purity, and clarity — cannot produce sahj. Sahj belongs to what is beyond all three modes. The person who has cultivated great virtue and purity is still operating within sattva, still within Maya's domain, still short of the fourth state.
Parhiaa muniaa, kiaa vadaa ho-vai, je mukhaho sach kahaihai — what is the greatness of all the reading and studying (parhiaa muniaa)? What's the point of all this, if you lose your roots (mukhaho sach kahaihai — if your mouth speaks but your roots are lost)? The scholar who has read everything but lost their root — the connection to the divine through the Guru — has gained impressive knowledge and lost the one thing that matters.
Chaoothay pad meh sahj hai, gurmukh ko-ee paa-ay — in the fourth state (chaoothay pad — the fourth condition, beyond the three qualities), sahj is present (sahj hai); the Gurmukhs alone receive it (ko-ee paa-ay — some, rare ones, receive it). Chaoothay pad: the state that transcends the three modes of nature. In Guru Amar Das's teaching, this is the destination of the spiritual life. Not a higher version of the three modes but a different category entirely.
What would the 'fourth state' look like in practice — a quality of consciousness that is beyond effort, beyond even virtue, just naturally at ease with what is?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI