Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Kabir speaks plainly now. 'Give up the things that are rotting you from inside — the pleasures that come from corruption. Or those things will kill you. Not slowly. They will kill you while you think you're living.'
His solution is specific: meditate on the Lord through the Word of His Bani. Not good intentions. Not effort in general. The Bani — the Lord's own word, carried in the Guru's voice.
That is how you'll cross the terrifying world-ocean. There's a vast, dark ocean between where you are now and where you need to be. The Bani is how you get across.
Kabir — who came from outside the Sikh tradition — is fully pointing to the same answer as the Gurus. The Name. The Bani. The Guru. They all arrive at the same place.
Kabir throughout the GGS has no patience for slow, gentle paths when he thinks the house is on fire. The word 'corruption' here (bikh, poison) is precise: the pleasures of corruption are not just sinful, they are lethal. They do not diminish you gradually; they kill you while you think you're living fully. The alternative is specific — not meditation in general, not good intentions, but the Bani: the Lord's own Word. This is Kabir — a weaver of Banaras raised in a Muslim Julaha family, though traditional accounts of his birth differ — fully endorsing the Guru's path. The Sikh tradition finds in this a confirmation: Kabir and the Gurus are saying the same thing, because they have found the same Lord.
Is there something in your life that feels like pleasure but might actually be slowly poisoning you?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI