Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Here is a man living a king's life — every comfort, every pleasure available to him. But Trilochan says: he is drowning.
He's fallen into the world-ocean — the vast, terrifying sea that the Gurus describe as ordinary life — and he doesn't know it. The pleasures feel like solid ground. He thinks he's standing firmly. He thinks he can't drown. He might think he's practically immortal.
But Maya has cheated him. Not violently — gently. It lured him in, and while he was enjoying the beauty, it robbed him of the one thing that matters: the awareness of what is actually happening.
And now he spends his life in a kind of spiritual laziness — never asking the real questions, never looking past the surface.
The world-ocean (bhavsaagar) is one of the GGS's signature images: life as a vast, terrifying sea with no visible shore. The typical person thinks they are on land — or at least, that they are a strong swimmer. Maya is the illusion that provides this false confidence. Trilochan uses the word vanciyaa — 'cheated, deceived, robbed.' Maya doesn't just distract; it steals. What is stolen is the awareness of mortality, the impulse to seek, and the capacity for genuine practice. Spiritual laziness (aalasai) here is the reluctance to wake up to the actual situation — a numbness mistaken for contentment.
What would it feel like to wake up to the 'actual situation' of your life, the way Trilochan describes it?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI