kar se ho ja
“Dive into your selfhood, O heedless one — this is the secret of life. Step out of the ring of evening and morning, and become everlasting.”
निकल कर से जावेदाँ हो जा
The couplet in Devanagari — it carries the authenticity of the original, and every Hindi reader can read it.
نکل کر حلقۂ شام و سحر سے جاوداں ہو جا
The couplet as Iqbal wrote it, in Urdu (Nastaliq).
Iqbal calls the distracted person back to the one place worth diving into — the self. The 'ring of evening and morning' is ordinary time, the repeating cycle of days. A self that goes deep enough, he suggests, steps outside that ring into something that does not simply repeat and fade.
Time keeps cycling whether you grow or not. Iqbal's instruction is to use that time to go inward and build something durable — a self substantial enough to outlast the calendar.
Khuda bande se khud pooche, bata teri raza kya hai
Tu agar mera nahin banta na ban, apna to ban
Nek jo raah ho us rah pe chalana mujh ko