Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Go ahead — build your houses — if you think you will live here forever and ever.
The body will fall, and the soul will depart. If only people knew this while there is time.
Guru Nanak uses a teacher's oldest trick: mock permission. Go ahead, build — if you're staying forever. The sentence collapses under its own condition, because no one is staying forever, and everyone knows it the moment they are asked. The verse does not forbid building; the Gurus lived the householder path and built towns. It forbids the forgetting that building induces — the way a finished roof quietly persuades its owner that nothing above it matters.
What do you own that quietly makes you feel more permanent than you are?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI