Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
The one who says 'I did this' is called an idiotic fool.
Attached to egotism, they come and go in reincarnation forever. Imbued with Maya, they are ruined.
The claim 'I did this' is the root of all accumulated karma — every claim of independent doing creates its consequence.
Main keetaa — "I did this." This claim of independent doership (kartaa) is what Guru Amar Das names as the murkh (fool's) error. Not because humans do nothing, but because claiming independent doing — as if not receiving life, capacity, and circumstances from the One — is the foundational error of the ego.
Maa-i-aa moh ras — absorbed in the sweetness of Maya, ruined. Maya's seduction is not abstract: it offers immediate, visceral pleasure in the claim of being the independent doer. It feels like power. It is, in the long run, the source of the cycling.
When you succeed at something, do you feel it is entirely yours? When you fail, do you take it all on yourself? What would a more accurate accounting of what is 'yours' look like?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI