Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Think about the One who fills everything - and think about where you came from.
Someone shaped you, decorated you, kept you safe in the fire of the womb.
When you were a baby, milk arrived. When you were growing, food, fun and understanding arrived. As you age, hands arrive to care for you.
And we barely notice any of it, or say thank you. Nanak says: forgive us - that is our only hope.
Your whole life has been a line of gifts arriving, from before you were born until you are old.
The verse walks through a human life step by step. The womb, being a baby, growing up, growing old. At every step, something good arrives. You were kept safe in the fire of the womb. Baar bivasthaa tujheh pi-aarai dooDh — as a baby, you were given milk. When young, you had food, joy, and understanding. When old, family and friends feed you as you rest. None of it did you supply yourself.
Think of a package that shows up at your door every single day. After a while, you stop wondering who sends it.
The last line of that list is painfully true. Ih nirgun gun kachhoo na boojhai — this person has not noticed any of the good done for them. The point is not to make you feel guilty. It is to help you see again.
Forgetting to be grateful here is not being wicked. It is being blind. It is not seeing that everything is a gift. The second verse of Anand Sahib brings back that same seeing. Nobody earned their own sunrise.
And the answer is not paying it all back. That debt can never be paid. The answer is forgiveness, asked for and received. Bakhas layho ta-o naanak seejhai — if You forgive, Nanak says, then one is saved.
List three things you use every day that you did nothing to deserve. Who provided them?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI