Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Those who don't serve the teaching never take up love for the Word.
They don't hold the Name — why did they even come? Again and again they circle, stuck in false greed, on neither shore. But Nanak says: the Gurmukhs are saved; the One unites them with itself.
A stern Shalok, but the sternness is grief, not gloating — "why did they even bother to come into the world?" is a lament over wasted arrival. "Neither on this shore, nor on the one beyond" pictures the misery of being stranded by false greed. And it ends, as the Vaar always does, on the open door: the Gurmukhs "are saved." The lament exists to make the rescue vivid.
What would 'coming to shore' look like for you, out of whatever leaves you stranded in-between?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI