Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Take the attachment you feel to things that don't last — the clinging, the possessiveness — and burn it. Use the ash as ink.
Make your intelligence into the cleanest paper. Make your love for the oneness into your pen. Let your awareness be the hand that writes.
Then sit with your teacher, and write what you've learned. Write the praises of the Name — again and again — because it has no end.
This one turns your inner life into a writing kit. Every part of you becomes a tool for writing the One's praise.
The tools are surprising. Jaal moh ghas mas kar: burn moh, clinging to things, grind it up, and make it into ink. Mat kaagad kar saar: make your mind into the finest paper. Bhaa-o kalam kar: make love into the pen. Chit laykhaaree: let your awareness be the writer. It's like a school art project where old scraps turn into something beautiful.
This is a kind of inner record-keeping. Japji Sahib has a similar picture: the One as a writer who keeps a record of everyone. Here, the student is asked to become their own writer.
The key step is gur puchh likh beechaar: ask the Guru first, then write down what you've thought through. Write what you've really learned, not what you just guessed. That's real, honest searching, not a show of being holy. Likh naam saalaah: write the praise of the Name, again and again. Ant na paaraavaar: it has no end and no far shore.
If you had to write one honest thing about what really matters to you — not what should matter, but what actually does — what would it be?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI