Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
The self-willed manmukhs stand there and dry up. They do not bear any fruit — and they do not provide any shade.
Don't even bother sitting near them. They have no home, no village of their own.
They are cut down and burnt each day. They have neither the Shabad nor the Name.
Manmukh rukh nikhutai sukai, fal naahi chhaa-i — the manmukh trees stand there and dry out (nikhutai sukai — exhausted and dried up); they bear no fruit and provide no shade (fal naahi chhaa-i). The ecological contrast is complete: where the Gurmukh tree is always green, giving fruit and shade, the manmukh tree is dry — no fruit, no shade. A tree that gives nothing. Not a malicious tree but simply one that has dried up from the absence of the living water of the Shabad.
Tin pohi na baithee-ai, ghar naahi nahi thaai — don't sit near them; they have no home (ghar naahi) and no place (nahi thaai). The advice is practical and almost ecological: don't shade yourself under a dry tree. It offers nothing. And the dry tree itself has no ghar (home) and no thaai (place to rest) — the manmukh has the same homelessness as the flying bird. All that movement, all that drying up, and no home.
Nit nit kat-iai jalay, bin sabad bin naaei — they are cut down and burnt again and again (nit nit — day after day, always); they have neither the Shabad nor the Name. The daily cutting and burning: each day that passes without the Shabad and Name is another day of the dry tree's cycle — dried, cut, burnt, dried again. Nit nit amplifies the relentlessness: this is not one dramatic fate but the texture of daily life without orientation.
Who in your life is like a green tree — giving shade and fruit — and who drains rather than gives? What makes the difference?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI