Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
O Baba, the beauty of the world — the things that shimmer and flash and say 'look at me, choose me, want me' — all of it is a kind of trick.
The blind one has forgotten the Name. He ends up in a middle place: not fully here, not fully anywhere. Wandering.
This one says the shiny things of the world can fool us, and then we feel lost.
This is the Rahao, the "pause" line. It is the center of the whole shabad. Baabaa maa-i-aa rachnaa Dhohu: "O Baba, the show of Maya is a trick." Maya is the pull of the world's glitter.
Maya is not the world itself. The world is good. Maya is the mix-up about the world. It is taking the shine for the real thing, the outside for what is underneath.
AnDhai naam visaari-aa naa tis ayh na oh: "The blind one has forgotten the Name; he is neither here nor there." Being "blind" here means not seeing what is real.
Think of scrolling a phone at dinner. You aren't really with your family. You aren't really enjoying the phone either. You end up in a middle place, unhappy both ways.
That is what forgetting the Name feels like. When we chase the shine and forget what's underneath, we stop being fully in our life. The way back is to remember.
Is there something you wanted badly and then got — and it wasn't as good as you expected? What did that teach you?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI