Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Not even the most just and generous people remain; not the hidden worlds far beneath the earth. Only the One truly is.
Who else is there? You alone, Lord — You alone.
This shalok presses the litany into territory that might seem safe from it — virtue itself. Neither the just, nor the generous, nor any humans at all... shall remain. Even the genuinely good — the just, the generous, the people we most admire and would most wish to last — pass away like everyone else. And the cosmic frame too: nor the seven realms beneath the earth — not even the deep architecture of the universe endures.
It would be easy to misread this as saying virtue doesn't matter, but that is the opposite of the point. Throughout this very Vaar, Guru Nanak insists that truthful, just, generous living is everything. What this shalok says is narrower and more precise: even the good are not permanent. Justice and generosity are precious, but the just and generous person still dies. So you cannot make even your own virtue the thing you cling to as ultimate — it is the One expressing through the virtuous, not the virtuous in themselves, that endures. The One Lord alone exists. Who else is there? Hold goodness with your whole life — and still know that the goodness, and the good, are passing waves on the one permanent ocean. You alone, You alone.
Could you hold even your own goodness a little more lightly — as a wave of the One rather than something that makes you permanent?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI