As Long As I Sing, I Live - On Guru Nanak's So Kyon Visre

This is one of my older compositions; I sang this shabad on my 21st birthday. Ever since, its opening line has felt like a heartbeat: “As long as I sing, I live; as soon as I forget, I die.” In Guru Nanak’s song in Raag Aasaa—the melody of hope—“singing” isn’t just vocal performance. It is the steady practice of remembrance, tuning breath, mind, and action to the True Name. “Forgetting” is the drift into spiritual amnesia—the small daily deaths that happen whenever I loosen my hold on that remembrance.

Guru Nanak immediately complicates the claim: “It is difficult to speak the True Name.” The difficulty is not phonetic; it is moral and existential. To speak the Name truly means to align with truth—a life where speech, attention, and conduct match what we invoke. That’s why the shabad reframes “singing” as a form of hunger: “If one feels hunger for the True Name, that hunger consumes pain.” Most hungers wound; this one heals. It eats the ache that made it arise. To live by singing is to let longing do its holy work—reshaping memory, softening the heart, and burning off the residues of fear.

The *rahāu*—“So how could I ever forget, O Mother?”—is the pivot. Addressing “Mother” brings tenderness into theology; remembrance is learned the way a child learns to breathe and speak—through love, repetition, and nearness. Forgetting, then, isn’t a failure of intelligence; it’s a loss of intimacy. The cure is simple and demanding: keep returning to the Name until returning becomes your nature.

Midway, the shabad warns us not to confuse our singing with God’s size: “Even if all spoke, He would be neither greater nor less.” My singing does not inflate the Divine; it transforms the singer. The point is not to add praise to God’s ledger but to align my pulse with what already is. “He gives, and His giving never runs out”—the music is flowing regardless; singing is how I step into its current.

By the end, the contrast sharpens: “Those who forget the Master are base; without the Name, they are outcasts.” This is not an insult; it’s a diagnosis of estrangement. Forgetting exiles me from my own center. Singing returns me home. On my twenty-first birthday, I did not understand all of this. I only knew that the line felt true in my body—as if breath itself was a quiet chant and each lapse into distraction a brief dying. Decades later, the practice remains the same: when I notice the fade, I hum. When I feel the ache, I feed it the Name. To live is to sing; to sing is to remember; and to remember is to be carried, again and again, by the melody of hope.

ਆਸਾ ਮਹਲਾ ੧ ॥

ਆਖਾ ਜੀਵਾ ਵਿਸਰੈ ਮਰਿ ਜਾਉ ॥

ਆਖਣਿ ਅਉਖਾ ਸਾਚਾ ਨਾਉ ॥

ਸਾਚੇ ਨਾਮ ਕੀ ਲਾਗੈ ਭੂਖ ॥

ਤਿਤੁ ਭੂਖੈ ਖਾਇ ਚਲੀਅਹਿ ਦੂਖ ॥੧॥

ਸੋ ਕਿਉ ਵਿਸਰੈ ਮੇਰੀ ਮਾਇ ॥

ਸਾਚਾ ਸਾਹਿਬੁ ਸਾਚੈ ਨਾਇ ॥੧॥ ਰਹਾਉ ॥

ਸਾਚੇ ਨਾਮ ਕੀ ਤਿਲੁ ਵਡਿਆਈ ॥

ਆਖਿ ਥਕੇ ਕੀਮਤਿ ਨਹੀ ਪਾਈ ॥

ਜੇ ਸਭਿ ਮਿਲਿ ਕੈ ਆਖਣ ਪਾਹਿ ॥

ਵਡਾ ਨ ਹੋਵੈ ਘਾਟਿ ਨ ਜਾਇ ॥੨॥

ਨਾ ਓਹੁ ਮਰੈ ਨ ਹੋਵੈ ਸੋਗੁ ॥

ਦੇਂਦਾ ਰਹੈ ਨ ਚੂਕੈ ਭੋਗੁ ॥

ਗੁਣੁ ਏਹੋ ਹੋਰੁ ਨਾਹੀ ਕੋਇ ॥

ਨਾ ਕੋ ਹੋਆ ਨਾ ਕੋ ਹੋਇ ॥੩॥

ਜੇਵਡੁ ਆਪਿ ਤੇਵਡ ਤੇਰੀ ਦਾਤਿ ॥

ਜਿਨਿ ਦਿਨੁ ਕਰਿ ਕੈ ਕੀਤੀ ਰਾਤਿ ॥

ਖਸਮੁ ਵਿਸਾਰਹਿ ਤੇ ਕਮਜਾਤਿ ॥

ਨਾਨਕ ਨਾਵੈ ਬਾਝੁ ਸਨਾਤਿ ॥੪॥੨॥

In the melody of Hope

Chanting the Name, I live; forgetting it, I die.

It is so difficult to chant the True Name.

If someone feels hunger for the True Name,

then that hunger shall consume his pains. ||1||

So how could I ever forget Him, O my Mother?

True is the Master, and True is His Name. ||1||Pause||

The greatness of even an iota of the True Name,

people have grown weary of trying to appraise but they have not been able to.

Even if they were all to meet together and recount them,

You would not be made any greater or lesser. ||2||

He does not die - there is no reason to mourn.

He continues to give, but His Provisions are never exhausted.

This Glorious Virtue is His alone - no one else is like Him;

there has never been anyone like Him, and there never shall be. ||3||

As Great as You Yourself are, so Great are Your Gifts.

It is You who created day and night as well.

Those who forget their Lord and Master are vile and despicable.

O Nanak, without the Name, people are wretched outcasts. ||4||2||