Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
You can't even keep your own house safe from what's slipping away — so why spend your time peering into everyone else's?
The one who joins the teaching and gives their care to it — that person keeps their own home safe, and tastes the real sweetness.
A gently pointed opening: kee par ghar johan laagaa — "why do you keep watching others' houses?" The lesson is to tend your own inner home before minding everyone else's business — a check on judgment and gossip. The literal's "plundered" (moosat) is kept as "slipping away." The contrast is the gurmukh sayvak — the one facing the teaching and serving it — who ghar dar raakhahi, keeps their own home, and ras chaakhahi, tastes the nectar. Guru Nanak's quiet redirection: mind your own inner life first.
When you catch yourself judging someone else, what might be going on in your own house?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI