Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Suppose I could wear fire as my clothing, build my house out of snow, and chew iron for my food. Suppose I could swallow all the world's pain as easily as water, and push the whole earth along in front of me. Suppose I could set the entire earth on one side of a scale and balance it against a single penny.
Suppose I grew so vast that nothing could contain me, and could make everyone do whatever I commanded — so what? None of it would matter at all. However great the One is, that is how great its gifts are, and it gives them exactly as it pleases. The ones it looks upon with grace receive the only greatness worth having: the greatness of the True Name.
This shalok is a tour through impossible powers, and its repeated, deflating question is the whole point: so what? Guru Nanak imagines a being of cosmic might — one who could wear fire as clothes and live in a house of snow, eat iron, drink in all pain like water, drive the entire earth before him, weigh the whole earth against a single copper coin, grow so great he could not be contained, and control and lead all, with the power to make others do his bidding. It is a portrait of total mastery, supernatural and absolute — the very thing the human ego dreams of.
And over the whole magnificent list, Guru Nanak drops two flat words: so what? Ta kya — and then? What of it? Even if you possessed every one of these god-like powers, you would have nothing that matters, because none of it touches the one thing worth having. This is the same lesson as the four "even then I would worship You" shaloks and the Hukam meditation — power, even infinite power, is beside the point. The ego's whole project of becoming great enough to control everything is revealed as empty: you could control the cosmos and still be spiritually destitute.
Where, then, does real greatness lie? As Great as our Lord and Master is, so great are His gifts. He bestows them according to His Will. True greatness is not seized by becoming mighty; it is received as a gift from the One, whose own greatness is the source of every gift worth having. And the gift that counts is named in the last line: those upon whom the Lord casts His Glance of Grace, obtain the glorious greatness of the True Name. Not the greatness of controlling the earth, but the greatness of the Name — given, by grace, to the heart the One looks upon. All the imagined power in the universe is worth less than one glance of grace bestowing the Name. So what if you could rule the cosmos? The soul given the Name has the only greatness that does not turn, in the end, to smoke.
What kind of 'greatness' are you reaching for — and would it survive the question 'so what?'
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI