Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
It will not go with you when you leave — so why do you keep collecting it?
Tell me, why work so hard for what you must leave behind?
Forgetting the One, how could you be satisfied? Your mind cannot be at peace.
One who abandons the One and clings to something else sinks into misery.
Be kind and gentle to Nanak, One, and drive away his fear.
The Pauree presses the plain question: "why do you bother to collect what won't go with you?" It is the shrewd, practical voice of the whole tradition — not "possessions are evil," but "why exhaust yourself hoarding what you cannot keep?" And it names the emptiness at the heart of it: forgetting the One, "your mind cannot be pleased" — no amount of the leave-behind stuff satisfies. The Pauree ends, tenderly, not with the sleeper's fate but with the seeker's prayer: "be kind to Nanak, and dispel his fear." After all the warnings about the dream and the fraud and the bitter melon, the note it lands on is the request for the One to simply take the fear away.
Why do we work so hard for things we can't keep? What would it be like to set that down and simply ask for peace instead?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI