Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Burn the pen. Burn the ink. Burn the paper too.
Burn the writer who writes in the love of duality — who records things for the sake of the world, not the Lord.
In the end, people do what was pre-ordained for them. They cannot do anything else.
More radical than writing in the heart
The previous Shalok (Pauri24) said: "write in your heart, not on paper." This Shalok escalates: burn the pen, the ink, the paper, and the writer. If you understand what actually matters and what doesn't, the whole apparatus of external writing for the sake of worldly ends is worse than useless — it actively reinforces the love of duality.
Burn the writer who writes in the love of duality — the scribe who is doing their work for status, for pay, for recognition, for the approval of duality's systems — that writer is the problem. Not the act of writing, but writing done for wrong ends.
"People do what is pre-ordained"
Nānak likhiā ḏargatī, kin hū na ja'ie hekā — "O Nanak, people do what is pre-ordained; they cannot do anything else." This appears after the image of burning everything. The statement is not nihilism but surrender: ultimately, what happens is what is written. The recognition of predestination is not passivity — it is the release of the ego's claim to be the author of outcomes.
The Shalok leaves a paradox: burn the writer who writes in duality, because people only do what is pre-ordained anyway. The burning is itself ordained. The recognition is itself grace.
*What would it feel like to stop trying to be the author of your own story and instead find out what role you've been cast in? Would that be a relief, or frightening?*
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI