Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Excellent, excellent, excellent, excellent, excellent is Your Naam.
False, false, false, false is the world's pride, all its showing off.
The One's Naam is good through and through, and pride in the world is empty through and through.
This is the rahaa-o, the "pause" line, the centre of the shabad, the line everything else leans on. Guru Arjan uses Persian words here. Khoob means excellent or beautiful. Jhooth means false. He says khoob five times and jhooth four times, like a drumbeat.
Think of a friend who keeps saying "so good, so good, so good" about a song they love. They can't stop, because one word is not enough. That is the feeling here about the Naam.
Guru Arjan praises the One using words that Muslim neighbors of his time used in their own prayers. Love for the One can speak in many languages. And pride, the showing off, is the thing that turns out hollow.
What is something so good you could praise it again and again?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI