The One Is Deep; the Body Passing; Build on What Lasts
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
**Th** — the One is so deep you can never reach the bottom of it. Try as you might, its depths can't be measured.
The One is endless and steady; this body of ours, though, is passing and shaky — here for a while, then gone. And yet people build their whole lives on that tiny, unsteady patch, trying to raise a huge mansion with no pillars to hold it up. It's a gentle reminder: build your life on what actually lasts.
The letter T'hat'ha (soft “th” again). Athaah thaah nahee paavaa — the Unfathomable has no floor you can touch; the One is athaah, bottomless. Set against that immensity is ih thir na rahaavaa — the body is impermanent. Kabir's image of folly: building a mandir (mansion) bin thaabhah — without pillars — on a thorhai thal, a tiny scrap of ground. It's the picture of a life staked entirely on the passing and unstable, expecting it to hold up something grand. Not a threat — an invitation to notice the difference between jhooth (what washes away) and sach (what holds), and to lay your foundations on the lasting.
If you were building your life like a house, what would you want its foundation — the part that holds everything up — to be made of?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI