Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Earn your profit while you are alive — by serving the Guru.
If it is so written, one finds the True Guru.
This one says: do the good work now, while you are alive.
"Jeevdi-aa laahaa milai" — the profit is earned while living. Raag Aasaa often talks like a market, and every market has a closing time. This one closes when the breath does.
What do we have to trade in a lifetime? Our breaths, our attention, our helping hands. The line says "gur kaar kamaavai" — doing the Guru's work, serving — is the one investment that keeps its value past the very end.
Think of a school fair with tokens. You can only spend them while the fair is open.
The second line keeps a balance the Guru never drops. The market is real, and the effort is yours. But meeting the True Guru comes by what is written: "poorab hovai likhi-aa." Grace sets up the meeting that effort alone could not book.
If today's hours were coins, what did you buy with them?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI