Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Some people keep up all the outer rules of purity on the surface, but live quite differently in private.
That double life is just pretending. Drop the hypocrisy — hold onto what's real, and that's what carries you across.
This shalok calls out double standards — people who fuss over outer purity rituals (marks, rosaries, ritual cleansing) while quietly living by completely different rules in private. The specific example is of the day: keeping strict caste-purity for show indoors while adopting other customs in practice — a mismatch between the public performance and the private life. The Vaar's verdict is blunt and freeing: renounce your hypocrisy! The problem was never any particular custom; it's the gap between what you display and what you actually do. And the alternative is simple: taking the Name, you shall swim across — hold onto what's genuinely real in your heart, and let go of the exhausting performance. Be the same person inside and out, and you have nothing to keep up and nothing to hide.
Why does it feel so much lighter to be the same person in private as you are in public?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI