Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
I have burned up in the fire all the clever tricks and all the praise-seeking of the world.
Some speak well of me, some speak badly — I have handed my whole self over to you.
Here is the freedom that surrender buys. Once you have handed yourself over, the endless work of managing your reputation — being clever, chasing approval — can be burned up. And then the remarkable line about praise and blame: "some speak well of me, some speak badly." The Gurmukh living in sahaj is not shaken by either, because their root is no longer in what others say. This is enormously freeing for a child to hear: you cannot control whether people praise or criticize you, and you don't have to. When your worth is anchored somewhere deeper, the opinions blow past like wind.
Why is it so tiring to chase everyone's approval? What would change if you stopped?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI