Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
The True Name is my support, like a strong wall I can lean on.
The True Name is my support. It has filled every hunger in me.
It has brought peace and calm into my mind, and every wish I had has been met.
I give myself, again and again, to the Guru, whose greatness is like this.
Nanak says: listen, holy people — hold the Shabad close, with love.
The True Name is my support.
Saachaa naam mayraa aaDhaaro — "the True Name is my support." The word aadhaar means foundation, prop, sustenance: what holds you up and what feeds you. The Name jin bhukhaa sabh gavaa-ee-aa — has satisfied all hunger. Not some hunger: all of it.
This is the bani's first engagement with desire itself. Human wanting behaves like fire — feed it and it grows. Verse 32 will return to this with the tongue "engrossed in other tastes" whose thirst is never quenched, and verse 19 names desire the "terrible disease." Here is the positive statement of the cure: when the mind has a true support, the hunger that drove all the seeking is met at its source. Peace (saaNt) comes and dwells (aa-ay vasi-aa — comes and settles in, takes up residence), and desires are fulfilled not by acquisition but by the arrival of what they were actually pointing at.
Note the closing couplet's instruction to the Saints: sabad Dharahu pi-aaro — "enshrine love for the Shabad." The support is not gritted-teeth reliance but affection. You lean on the Name the way you lean on someone you love. And the verse repeats its first line as its last — the bani's signature circular structure, ending where it began, steady as the support it describes.
What do you lean on when you're having a hard day — and does it hold?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI