Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Countless who are lost in deep darkness, stumbling without knowing it. Countless who take what isn't theirs. Countless who use force to crush those weaker than them. Countless who commit violence. Countless who keep doing wrong, again and again.
Countless who have lived inside lies so long they've forgotten what truth feels like. Countless who consume what corrupts them. Countless who carry the weight of the harm they have done to others with their words.
And Nanak says all of this from the lowest place. Not looking down at anyone — but standing at the very bottom, as the most humble of all.
A single moment of devotion could never be enough — I would give myself to this wonder again and again. Whatever you find good — that is the right course of action. You are always here. Always safe. Always eternal, O formless one.
This pauri is the shadow side of Pauri 17. Where Pauri 17 marveled at the countless who reach toward the oneness, Pauri 18 looks honestly at the countless who get lost. Guru Nanak does not skip over this. He catalogs human failure with the same expansive sweep he used for human aspiration — because both are real, and both are part of what it means to be alive in the world.
The list is deliberate in its progression: from foolishness and dishonesty, through violence and lawlessness, to corruption, lies, and slander. This is not a catalog of rare monsters. It is a map of recognizable human tendencies on a spectrum. Foolishness and confusion are where it begins. Unchecked haumai — the illusion of the separate, defended self — can lead, over time, to the darkest ends.
The teaching tradition notices something in the spelling. In the line about sinners — asankh paapee paap kar jaahi — the word paap (sin) is marked as singular, even though the sinners are countless. Many sinners; one sin. And what is that single sin? Not any particular act, but the blindness underneath all of them — not knowing what you truly are. The thief, the tyrant, and the slanderer differ in what they do, but the root is the same darkness Guru Nanak named in the very first line of the pauri. This is quietly hopeful: if there is really only one sin, and it is a kind of forgetting, then no one is beyond the reach of remembering.
The most psychologically important moment in the pauri is the closing posture: Naanak neech kahai veechaar — Nanak says these reflections from the lowest place. The teaching tradition insists the grammar allows no other reading: the words are marked so that the line means "Nanak, the lowly, offers this reflection" — not "Nanak describes the lowly." Reverence has often tempted translators to spare Guru Nanak the word neech, low — but he chose it for himself. After cataloging the worst of human behavior, Guru Nanak does not position himself above it. He places himself below — not as performance of humility, but as genuine recognition that the same root of confusion that produced the thief and the violent one lives in every human heart. The difference between the lost and the found is not a difference of fundamental nature. It is a difference of how deeply haumai has taken hold.
This posture is also what prevents genuine spiritual practice from becoming spiritual arrogance. The person who has received grace does not look down at the lost. They look with compassion — knowing how easily any of us can drift.
The closing affirmation — Jo tudh bhaavai saa-ee bhalee kaar / Too sadaa salaamat nirankaar — returns like an anchor after the darkness of the catalog. Whatever the oneness finds right is right. The oneness is eternal and formless. Even the most lost are still held within it. This is not an endorsement of their actions. It is a statement about the nature of the oneness — which does not abandon even those furthest from it.
Have you ever caught yourself feeling superior to someone who did something wrong — and then later realized you might have done the same thing in their situation? What did that feel like?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI