Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
In the fourth watch of the night, the body is old. The eyes dim. The ears no longer catch what people say. The tongue loses its taste. You depend on others for everything now.
If there is no virtue inside — nothing gathered that truly holds — how can there be peace? The one who lived only for their own ego's desires comes and goes, comes and goes, never arriving anywhere.
The crop of life ripens, bends, and breaks. What was all that pride for?
Says Nanak: the Gurmukh — the one whose face is turned toward the teaching — recognizes the living Word. That recognition is what carries you through.
The body's complete undoing
This fourth watch is the most clinical of the four: Guru Nanak catalogs the body's failures one by one. Eyes go blind. Ears go deaf. The tongue loses its taste. The body that was once so capable, so beautiful, so powerful — requires help for everything. Rahe parāka-u tāṇā — "you remain dependent on others for support."
This is not written to shame the old or to create fear of aging. It is written to direct attention toward what cannot age: the inner life, the Shabad, the Name. The body is always failing from the moment it begins. What is cultivated inside is not subject to this entropy.
Manmukh / Gurmukh — the central contrast
Guṇ antar nāhī ki-o sukh pāvai, manmukh āvaṇ jāṇā — "with no virtue within, how can you find peace? The manmukh comes and goes in reincarnation." This is the first use of the manmukh/Gurmukh contrast in this composition, and it is placed here — in the fourth watch — deliberately. The contrast becomes the answer to the question: what determines whether a life ends in peace or in continued wandering?
The Gurmukh (Gurmukh sabad pachāṇ — "the Gurmukh recognizes the Shabad") has cultivated an interior orientation toward the teaching, toward truth, toward the divine. When the body fails — when everything external is stripped away — that interior orientation is what remains. It is the only thing that survives the body's undoing.
The crop metaphor closing the pauri
Khaṛ pakī kuṛ bhajai binsai, ā'e chalai ki-ā māṇ — "when the crop of life has matured, it bends, breaks and perishes; why take pride in that which comes and goes?" The merchant and harvest imagery that runs through Siree Raag appears again here. Pride (māṇ) in the body, in youth, in capability — all of it was always going to bend and break. This is not a reason for despair. It is an invitation to invest in what doesn't.
*When you imagine being very old and dependent on others — what inner quality would you most want to still have with you?*
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI