Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
I keep treating this passing world as if it were the solid, lasting thing, and I've gone and fallen in love with it.
And the One who truly stands by the small and the poor, the friend who'd actually be with me at the end — that one I've barely thought about.
The Ninth Guru names a precise mistake: mistaking the temporary for the true ("I judge the false world to be true"). We anchor our love in what's dissolving and neglect what would actually hold. The tender counter-image is "the friend of the poor" (deen dayaal) — the One whose specialty is standing with the small and powerless, "my companion and helper in the end." The verse gently asks where you've placed your love: in the scenery that's sliding past, or in the friend who stays when the scenery is gone?
What things do we treat as permanent that are actually passing? What actually stays with you to the end?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI