Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Why ask for a pen? Why ask for ink? Write inside your heart.
Stay immersed in the love of your Lord forever — and that love will never break.
Pen and ink will disappear one day, and so will everything written on paper.
The love of your Husband Lord never perishes. The True Lord has bestowed it, as it was always meant to be.
Writing in the heart vs. writing on paper
Kilam davāt mangā'ī'ai, likhī'ai man vichai — "Why ask for a pen, and why ask for ink? Write within your heart." Guru Amar Das sets inner inscription against external writing. The whole apparatus of scholarship — pen, ink, paper, text — is impermanent. What is written outside will eventually be gone. What is written inside the heart — not by ink but by love — is permanent.
This is not anti-literacy. The Guru himself composed and transmitted teaching through written text. The point is that external text without interior inscription is just marks on a surface. The text must be written inside — experienced, absorbed, lived — to be permanent.
The love that never breaks
Har pati pat na to'e, sachay sāhib dittā pi'ār — "the Love of your Husband Lord shall never perish. The True Lord has bestowed it, as it was pre-ordained." The love between the soul and the Lord is pūrba-ordained (pre-ordained). It was always there, waiting to be recognized. When it is recognized and lived, it is the one thing that does not pass away.
The contrast is clear: all writing will pass, all paper will perish, all ink will fade. The one love that doesn't — that is the Lord's love for the soul and the soul's for the Lord.
*What is the difference between knowing something intellectually (like facts you've read) and knowing it from the inside (from having lived it)? Can you give an example of each?*
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI