Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Don't fake it or trick people — the One sees straight through to what's real, like a jeweler testing gold.
Set down the anger and the flattery and the gossip, and take shelter in what's true.
The verse returns to sincerity: do not practice deception — God is the Assayer of all. An assayer is someone who tests whether gold is real; the image says the One can always tell genuine from fake, so pretending is pointless. And it lists what to set down to become real: lust, anger, flattery, and slander — notice flattery and gossip are in there, the small everyday dishonesties of how we talk about people. Being true isn't only about big things; it's about not faking, not buttering people up, not tearing them down behind their backs. Drop those, and you can enter the shelter as your real self.
Why do you think flattery and gossip are named as things to let go of? How do they hurt?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI