Read a Library and Still Miss the One Thing
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
You could read boatloads of books, fill whole rooms with them, read every day of your life —
and still miss the one thing that truly matters. All the rest, without it, is just words piling up.
A wonderfully vivid shalok about the limits of mere book-learning: you may read boat-loads of books, fill pits with them, read year after year, with every breath — the images pile up as high as the books do. And the verdict: only one thing is of any account; everything else is useless babbling in ego. This isn't anti-book (the whole Vaar is words to be read and sung!); it's a warning that information isn't the same as understanding. You can know ten thousand facts and still miss the one thing — real love of the One — that gives all the rest meaning. Better to truly hold one living truth than to stack up libraries you never let change you.
Is it better to memorize many things or to truly understand and live one important thing?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI