Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
You are the River of Life, and I am just a fish in You.
Where else can I go? I cannot live without You even for an instant.
The fish in the river does not wonder about water. It cannot survive without it.
The fish-and-water metaphor: tu dariaao main machhulee — You are the river, I am the fish. The fish's entire life happens within the water; it cannot leave it for even a moment (pal chasaa na reha-o bin tohai) and live.
This is the relationship Guru Arjan is naming: the soul within the divine is like the fish within the water. The fish does not philosophically analyze water — it breathes it, swims in it, is constituted by it. The soul is in this relationship with the divine whether it recognizes it or not.
"Where else can I go?" — aur na jaanaa koee thaa — this is the full realization: there is nowhere else. The searching of all four directions is over. There is only water; there is only the divine.
What are you in relationship to the divine like — what metaphor fits best for you? Fish in water? Guest in a house? Child with a parent? Instrument in the player's hands? What image captures it?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI