Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Gold and silver. Beautiful people. The smell of sandalwood. Fine horses. Soft beds in palaces. Sweet treats and spices.
All of these pleasures are real — and they are worth nothing if the connection inside is missing.
Not because pleasures are bad. But because they are temporary. And when they go, the emptiness they were covering becomes impossible to ignore.
This pauri lists the pleasures of a prosperous 15th-century life: wealth, beauty, fragrance, horses, luxury, food. These are not condemned as evil — they are named as pleasures that are, by themselves, insufficient.
The teaching here is subtle: Guru Nanak is not a hermit who thinks pleasure is sinful. He is someone who has looked at pleasure honestly and noticed: it doesn't solve the fundamental longing. It doesn't touch the place that needs touching.
This is what Buddhists call dukkha — the pervasive sense of unsatisfactoriness that runs through even pleasant experiences, because all experiences pass.
Has there been something you really wanted, got, enjoyed — and then found yourself wanting the next thing? What does that cycle feel like?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI