Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
When the teacher cannot truly see, the students cannot find their way home. A guide who is lost cannot lead you anywhere.
Without the True Guru, you cannot find the Name. And without the Name — what is the point of any of it?
People arrive in this world and leave it full of regret — like crows landing in an abandoned house, finding nothing there.
The image of the blind teacher and lost students is one of Guru Nanak's sharpest institutional critiques. The word chayla (devotee/student) carries the sense of total commitment — these are people who have genuinely surrendered their direction to a teacher. If the teacher is blind (andhulay), that surrender leads nowhere; the sincerity of the students cannot compensate for the vacancy of the teaching.
This is not a condemnation of all teachers — it is a call to discernment. What is the teacher transmitting? Knowledge about the Name, or the Name itself? The difference is everything.
"Like crows in a deserted house" — sunjai ghar kaao. Crows in the Punjab were and are everywhere; they are intelligent, opportunistic birds that gather wherever there is food or life. A deserted house offers neither. They land, find nothing, and leave. Each coming and going is the same — nothing is found, nothing builds, nothing remains. This is the cycle of births without the Name: arriving, finding nothing lasting, departing in regret.
The question "without the Name, what is the use of it all?" (ki-aa su-aa-o) is one of the most direct challenges in Gurbani. It does not ask "what is the use of wickedness" — it asks what is the use of everything else. The most respectable, well-ordered life, without the Name, is empty at its center.
What is the difference between someone who teaches from lived experience and someone who teaches from words alone — and how do you tell the difference?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI