Make Truth the Very Pen You Write With

Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa

This verse says that when truth is the paper, pen and ink of our life, our life opens the door to freedom.

It is the bright answer to the verse before. Same picture of writing a life, but now everything is sach, true, instead of koorh, false. Gurmukh sacho sach likheh veechaar — the gurmukh, one who faces the Guru, writes and thinks about truth, and only truth. The person in the last verse poured their effort into the false. The gurmukh pours it into the real. Same hard work, different ink. And the ending is completely different. That person burned to ashes. But say jan sachay paavahi mokh du-aar — the true ones find the gate of mokh, freedom.

The most surprising line is the last one. Sach kaagad kalam masvaanee — their paper, pen and inkpot are made of truth. It is not only that they write true things on ordinary paper. The tools themselves have become truth. Think of the paper as our thoughts, the pen as our actions, and the ink as our words. For a true person, all three are true. Truth is not just what their life says. It is what their life is made of, all the way through. There is no gap between what they say and how they live. Think of a stick of rock candy with a word printed in it. Snap it anywhere, and the same word shows. Everything written with such a pen comes out true.

Then the lovely end: sach likh sach samaavani-aa — writing truth, they melt into the True One. A life written all in truth becomes so true that it simply joins the One who is Truth. Nothing false is left to keep it apart. So these two verses hand us a clear choice. Our life is a writing, and we cannot avoid writing it. But we can choose our ink.