Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
The Saints have found the one way of life that actually settles everything: loving the Lord's Feet with their whole being. That is the direction their lives face.
The love of anything else — anything that divides the heart between the Lord and something else — that is not pleasing to those who have tasted the real thing. They know the difference too well.
Without even a glimpse of the Lord, they cannot rest — not for a moment. Without the Name, the body and mind go empty, dying like fish pulled from the water they live in.
Come to me, O my Beloved — You who are the very breath in me. Let me sing Your praises in the company of those who love You. Permeate me: not just my thoughts but my body, my mind, my whole being.
"It is not pleasing to the Lord's slaves"
Dutī'ā bhā'o biprīt anīt dāsā nah bhāvay — "the love of duality, this evil practice, this bad habit, is not pleasing to the Lord's slaves." The use of "slaves" here (dāsā) is deliberately strong — the ones who have given themselves completely to the Lord are described in the most absolute terms of surrender. And their characteristic state is that duality simply does not appeal to them anymore. Not because they have suppressed the desire for other things — but because they have tasted something so complete that the other things have lost their flavor.
This is not asceticism. It is discernment from abundance, not from scarcity.
"Like fish out of water, they die"
Nām bihoonā tan man hīnā, jal bin machhulee ji-o marai — "without the Naam, the body and mind are empty; like fish out of water, they die." This connects directly to Shabad 134's central image. The Chhants of Siree Raag are in dialogue with each other — the fish-water metaphor appears in Guru Arjan's Chhant II (Shabad 134) and resurfaces here, as a shared vocabulary across adjacent compositions.
"Permeate my body, mind and being"
Man tan ank samāvay — "permeate my body, mind and being." The prayer here is not for a visit or an occasional experience. The word ank (in the lap, close-held, embraced) is intimate; samāvay (permeate, pervade, merge into) is total. The soul prays not to encounter the divine but to be saturated by it — the way cloth is saturated by dye, until the cloth and the color are inseparable.
*What is the practice that most makes you feel genuinely alive — and how consistently are you actually doing it?*
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI