Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
When someone gives themselves over to ill-will, they lose their own footing — there is nowhere steady left to stand.
Feeding on bitterness is like sipping poison every day: it eats away at the one who carries it.
Tearing others down slowly wears a person out from the inside — the fire they light burns their own heart first.
So I do not try to fight this or fix it by force. I simply step into the shelter of the Unseen One, the One who was here before everything began.
This closing stretch of the Vaar turns on one steady truth: ill-will is self-defeating. The literal is fierce — a person "kicked" by God, "eating poison," "burning within," "struck down" — but the teaching underneath is gentle and worth keeping. Bitterness and slander are not framed here as a crime that earns punishment from outside; they are a poison the person keeps drinking, a fire that consumes its own carrier. The frightening images of being struck down are softened into their real meaning: someone who lives by tearing others down loses their own footing. And the pauri does not end on the slanderer at all — it ends on the speaker's own move: tis sarnaagatee jo purakh alkhai, entering the shelter of the Unseen One. The answer to another's bitterness is not counter-attack but taking refuge. Alakh — "the Unseen," the One who cannot be perceived by the senses but is always there.
When someone is unkind to you, what would it feel like to protect your own peace instead of trading unkindness for unkindness?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI