At first hearing, “7 Seconds” seems like a protest song — a cry against racism, war, and the divisions that scar humanity. Sung in Wolof, French, and English, it is a global prayer for compassion and unity. But beneath its surface, the song carries a current far deeper than social commentary. It is about the mystery of birth itself, the fragile purity of the soul as it emerges into the world, and the swift descent of conditioning that follows.
In Kaula Shakta vision, these “seven seconds” are not only the brief span of a newborn’s innocence, but a symbol of the interval before Māyā descends — the gap between the child’s first cry and the voices of the world that begin to shape identity. It is the sacred instant where the cry is still pure nāda (sound vibration), unbroken into language, closer to mantra than to speech. In those moments, there is no race, no religion, no history — only the presence of Shakti manifesting as life itself.
The song thus becomes a hymn of paradox: the longing to preserve that primal purity, the lament of its inevitable loss, and the hope that humanity can recover, even briefly, that state beyond difference. Just as Kaula practice teaches that everything is at once prescribed and proscribed — that the world is both bondage and liberation — so this song reminds us that within even the most divided society, there still shines a window of untouched vision, a “seven seconds” of grace.
Verse 1 (Youssou N'Dour)
Wolof:
Boul ma sene, boul ma guiss madi re nga fokni mane
Khamouma li neka thi sama souf ak thi guinaw
Beugouma kouma khol dal diné yaw li neka si yaw
Mo ne si mane, li ne si mane moye dilene diapaleEnglish:
Don’t see me from a distance, don’t look at my smile and think I don’t understand
I don’t know what’s happening in front of me or behind me
I don’t want to open my eyes and realize that my destiny is tied only to yours
What is yours, what is mine, is meant to help us live together
This opening, sung in Wolof, feels like the cry before language — the voice of the motherland, raw and unpolished, closer to mantra than to poetry. In Kaula Shakta terms, this is nāda in its primal form: sound that still vibrates with the immediacy of Shakti before being wrapped in rational categories.
The plea “Don’t see me from a distance, don’t look at my smile and think I don’t understand” touches the paradox of appearance and essence. In the Kaula vision, the Persona (mask, smile, surface) often deceives; true knowledge (pratyabhijñā, recognition) requires intimacy, not judgment from afar. The song begins with a rejection of superficial seeing — the same rejection that Tantra makes of mere social ritual without inner fire.
When he says “I don’t know what’s happening in front of me or behind me,” it resonates with the state of a newborn: without orientation in time, without history or future. It is the moment of pure present, a sandhyā — threshold between worlds — before the karmic story of past and future tightens its grip.
The lines “What is yours, what is mine, is meant to help us live together” carry the essence of Kaula union (saha-bhoga — shared enjoyment). In the Kaula circle, what is “mine” and “yours” is dissolved in the flow of Shakti, becoming nourishment for all. The verse already plants the seed of the song’s mystical current: true life begins where possession ends, where relation becomes communion.
Verse 2 (Neneh Cherry)
Roughness and rudeness we should be using
On the ones who practice wicked charms
For the sword and the stone, bad to the bone
Battle is not over, even when it's won
And when a child is born into this world
It has no concept of the tone of skin it's living in
Here the song turns from plea to fire. Neneh Cherry’s voice carries the current of resistance — not against people, but against the enchantments that divide. “Wicked charms” evokes more than politics; it is the spell of illusion, the dark magic of conditioning that persuades us to see separation where there is none. Against such sorcery, gentleness is not enough. Sometimes roughness — fierce clarity — is what breaks the spell.
The “sword and the stone” reminds us that struggle does not end with one victory. The battle against ignorance is perpetual, because the world continuously re-casts its spells of race, class, and creed. To live awake is to fight again and again, even in silence, even in tenderness.
And then, suddenly, the perspective shifts — from battle to birth. “When a child is born into this world, it has no concept of the tone of skin it’s living in.” This is the heart of the song. Birth itself is the purest proof: no one arrives carrying the divisions that later dominate their lives. The child’s first seconds are unburdened by history, untouched by prejudice. The war begins only when the world speaks into its ears.
The verse thus holds paradox: life begins with innocence, but is immediately surrounded by struggle. The task is not to preserve innocence unchanged — which is impossible — but to remember it, to return to that vision even in the midst of conflict.
Chorus
We're seven seconds away
Or just as long as I stay
I'll be waiting
It's not a second
We're seven seconds away
Or just as long as I stay
I'll be waiting
I'll be waiting
I'll be waiting
The chorus is a spiral — not linear, not a message that begins and ends, but a wave that keeps returning. It circles because it is not merely human poetry; it is invocation.
“We’re seven seconds away” — this is not about a countdown, but a reminder of nearness. Awakening, recognition, return — all of it is never far. It is always just at the edge of breath, the distance of one heartbeat. Seven seconds is mythic time, not measured by clocks but by symbols: the number of completion, of cycles, of the steps that carry us from bondage into remembrance.
“Or just as long as I stay” — the voice bends here. It is not only a child’s promise to endure, not only a singer’s vow to hold on. It is the voice of the Divine Mother: “I stay with you through every birth, every fall, every forgetting. I wait in you and for you.”
And the refrain: “I’ll be waiting … I’ll be waiting … I’ll be waiting.” Each repetition is softer, deeper, like a lullaby sung over the soul. The waiting here is not passive; it is the most active kind of love — presence that never withdraws. It is Her fidelity, infinite and tender, holding the child even when the world rushes in with a million voices of division.
The chorus thus becomes a mantra of reassurance. It says: You will forget, but I will not. You will be caught in colors and boundaries, but I will be waiting, only seven seconds away. You are never lost for more than the space of a breath.
It is the Divine’s eternal promise wrapped in a human song.
Verse 3 (Youssou N’Dour)
French:
J'assume les raisons qui nous poussent de changer tout
J'aimerais qu'on oublie leur couleur pour qu'ils esperent
Beaucoup de sentiments de race qui font qu'ils desesperent
Je veux les portes grandements ouvertes
Des amis pour parler de leur peine, de leur joie
Pour qu'ils leur filent des infos qui ne divisent pas
ChangerEnglish:
I accept the reasons that push us to change everything
I would like us to forget their color so that they may have hope
So many feelings about race that make them despair
I want the doors wide open
Friends to talk about their pain, their joy
So they can give them information that doesn’t divide
Change
Here the cry deepens into vision. It is no longer only a protest against division, but a dream of another world breaking through this one.
“I accept the reasons that push us to change everything” — this line carries the courage of responsibility. Not resignation, but acceptance: to live awake is to accept the fire of transformation. It is to know that the world cannot stay as it is, and that change begins not from blame but from recognition.
“Forget their color so that they may have hope” — the plea is not for blindness, but for release from the spell that binds hope to skin. It is a longing to return to the vision of the child, who has not yet learned the false language of difference.
“I want the doors wide open” — here the Mother’s waiting becomes visible as hospitality. Open doors are Her way of saying: “Come home. There is no outside. There is only space enough for all.” In every mystical tradition, the open door is a symbol of grace: the entrance into truth is never locked, only forgotten.
“Friends to talk about their pain, their joy” — this is the ordinary holiness of companionship. It is not grand doctrines or ideologies that heal, but shared words, shared tears, shared laughter. In Kaula terms, this is the circle of communion — where nothing is owned, and what is yours and mine is offered to one another as nourishment.
The verse ends with one word: “Changer” — Change. As if to say: this is not only a dream or a song, it is a call. Not the change of systems alone, but the inner change that remembers what we were in those seven seconds before the world began to whisper its lies.
Verse 4 (Neneh Cherry)
And when a child is born into this world
It has no concept
Of the tone of skin it's living in
And there's a million voices
And there's a million voices
To tell you what you should be thinking
So you better sober up for just a second
The verse begins with the purest truth: “When a child is born… it has no concept of the tone of skin it’s living in.” This is the heart of innocence. Birth itself is the proof that division is learned, not innate. A child arrives only as breath, cry, and gaze — untouched, uncolored by human constructs.
But immediately, “a million voices” surround it. The world rushes in with its commands, categories, and expectations. This is the moment when Māyā begins her work, whispering roles, weaving nets of “should” and “should not.” The tragedy is not only political — it is existential. A soul that entered in wholeness is almost instantly fragmented by the weight of voices.
The repetition — “a million voices, a million voices” — captures the overwhelming force of conditioning. Not one voice, but countless, relentless, competing to inscribe their narratives upon the child. This is how forgetfulness begins: not as a single trauma, but as a slow saturation.
And then comes the admonition: “So you better sober up for just a second.” Sober up — awaken, return, clear the fog. That “second” is the same seven seconds of grace we heard before: the interval where it is still possible to resist the flood, to anchor in what was known before the voices came. It is a plea for vigilance — not to preserve innocence untouched, but to awaken to the innocence that never truly leaves.
Thus the verse shows the full arc: the child arrives pure, the world encircles it with noise, and yet — even amidst the million voices — there remains the possibility of a pause, a return, a single second of clarity where truth can be remembered.
Final Reflection
“7 Seconds” begins as a cry against division, but as it unfolds it becomes something deeper: a hymn about the mystery of birth, the tragedy of forgetting, and the promise of return.
The verses move like stages of initiation. In the first, sung in Wolof, we hear the voice close to the source — unpolished, intimate, almost like the child’s own cry before language divides. In the second, the fire of battle appears: the recognition that illusion does not collapse on its own, that the spells of division must be broken with clarity and courage. Then comes the chorus — the eternal promise: “I’ll be waiting.” This is the voice of the Divine Mother, assuring us that beneath all the noise, She remains, patient and fierce, never abandoning us.
The French verse widens the dream into vision: open doors, true dialogue, the ordinary holiness of friendship. And finally, in the last verse, the world’s million voices arrive — the flood of conditioning that encircles every newborn. Yet even here, there is hope: the reminder that clarity can return in “just a second.”
Through all of it, the number seven shines as a symbol. Not a measurement of time, but a mythic threshold: seven days, seven steps, seven chakras — the cycle of completion. To be “seven seconds away” is to know that awakening is never distant. The distance between bondage and freedom is as small as the turn of awareness, as close as one breath.
Thus, the song is both lament and mantra. It names the pain of a world broken by divisions, but at the same time it holds out a vision of wholeness that can never truly be erased. The Goddess waits — in the cry of the child, in the silence beneath a million voices, in the pause where memory of unity flickers back.
We are never farther than seven seconds from Her.
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