What does Gurbani say about growing old?

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“Through pleasure and pain, the body is growing old.” (Guru Arjan, Ang 888) “Wealth and youth are like the shade of the bitter swallow-wort plant; you are growing old, and your days are coming to their end.” (Guru Nanak, Ang 689) “Even if you remove the signs of old age, old age shall still come in the guise of death.” (Guru Nanak, Ang 465) “My teeth, feet, eyes and ears have stopped working.” (Sheikh Farid, Ang 1381) “The night of my youth has passed away; will the day of old age also pass away?” (Bhagat Kabir, Ang 792) These lines present growing old as an unavoidable passage, a disclosure of impermanence, and a reason not to postpone spiritual attention. Guru Arjan in Raag Raamkalee on Ang 888 observes that amid both pleasure and pain, the body continues to age. Guru Nanak in Raag Dhanaasree on Ang 689 compares wealth and youth to fleeting shade, while in Raag Aasaa on Ang 465 he says that concealing the signs of age cannot prevent its arrival or death. Sheikh Farid on Ang 1381 gives an embodied account of decline as teeth, feet, eyes, and ears cease functioning. Bhagat Kabir in Raag Soohee on Ang 792 turns the passing of youth and the approach of old age into an urgent reflective question: will that remaining stage also pass without deeper attention? Together, the selections neither romanticize nor merely lament ageing; they use its physical reality to expose the brevity of youth, possessions, and human time.

What does Gurbani say about growing old?

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