Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
First, your standing is high. Second, you are honored by everyone. Third, your home is beautiful.
And yet — you are ugly inside, with pride filling your mind.
Guru Arjan is saying: no outside advantage makes you beautiful if pride fills you inside.
He speaks to a person who seems to have everything. First, a high place in society. Second, honor from everyone. Third, a beautiful home. Then comes the turn: bigarh roop man meh abhimaan — your beauty is spoiled, because pride sits in your mind. That pride grows from haumai, the ego, the "me first" voice inside.
Picture a phone in a gorgeous case that will not switch on. The case does not matter if the inside does not work. Real beauty lives inside. Like many hymns in Gurbani, this one speaks to the soul as a bride, a "she", getting ready to meet her Beloved, the One. Pride is what spoils her face.
What makes someone truly admirable — what's on the outside, or what's within?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI