Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
This place, as busy and solid as it seems, isn’t your final home — it helps to remember where your true home is. You come to sense that home through the Word of the Guru.
You build up this temporary place with a lot of hard work — and yet not the tiniest piece of it travels on with you. Its real worth is glimpsed only by those on whom the One’s full and kindly gaze rests.
There is a home that is steady and true, and it’s found in the Sangat. Nanak says: those hearts don’t wobble or drift; they’ve found the ground that doesn’t move.
Dadda is the "true home" Pauri. Ih dayraa — "this is not your (real) dwelling" — jah dayraa tah jaan: know where your true home is. The contrast is between the dayraa built by saram (hard work) here, of which tasoo nahee sang chaalai (not an iota goes with you), and the dayraa nihchal (the permanent, unshakeable home) found saadh sang, in the Sangat. Worldly life is right-sized: build here, and know the campsite from the home. Grace runs through it — the true home's value is seen only by those on whom the drisat pooran (the full, kindly Glance) rests. The reward image is nah dolaa-i-aa — those hearts do not waver: they've found ground that doesn't move. The very next Shalok's plea to be kept from wavering answers it, and the letter DADDA is complete.
What makes a place feel like “home” to you — and is it the building, or something you carry inside?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI