Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Think of the birds. They don't carry a single coin — no savings, no stockpiles, no anxious plans. They simply trust the trees and the streams to provide. And they are fed.
The One alone is the Giver. You alone, Lord — You alone.
This is the tenderest shalok in the litany, and it turns the great theme of impermanence into a gentle lesson in trust. The birds have no money in their pockets. They place their hopes on trees and water. Picture it: the birds own nothing, save nothing, cannot plan for tomorrow — and yet they are fed, day after day, by a world that provides trees to perch in and water to drink. Their whole economy is trust. And it works, because He alone is the Giver.
The lesson is not that we should be foolish or stop working — Guru Nanak prized honest labor. It is a lesson aimed straight at anxiety and hoarding. We pile up money and provisions against an imagined future, and still lie awake afraid there will not be enough; the birds, who pile up nothing, are fed. The difference is not in the supply — the One provides for both — but in the trust. The birds are not anxious because they have, without knowing it, placed their hope exactly where the previous shalok said it belongs: on the One, the Giver, rather than on their own stockpile. To watch a bird is to watch a small daily sermon on providence: owning nothing, fearing nothing, fed anyway. You alone, You alone — the One who feeds the bird is the One who feeds you.
What are you stockpiling against fear that the birds, owning nothing, would simply trust the Giver for?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI