Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Without real, true love inside, no outward act of devotion — however dramatic — can make a heart faithful.
O learned one, look honestly into your own heart, and think it over.
Faithfulness lives in the heart, not in a dramatic outward act.
Kabir borrows the name of satee, a painful custom from long ago. It demanded that a widow prove her faithfulness in a terrible way. Kabir takes the word and turns it inside out. Bin sat satee ho-ay kaisay naar — without sat, truth, how can anyone be truly faithful? Sat means truth, real and inward. So faithfulness is love in the heart. No outward act, however dramatic, can make it real.
Then Kabir speaks to the pandit, the learned scholar. Pandit daykhhu ridai beechaar — look into your own heart and think it over. Examine the heart, not the ritual. Think of a birthday message. A huge public post means little with no love behind it. A quiet, true word means much more. It is the love that is true, not the performance.
How can you tell the difference between someone performing care and someone who truly means it?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI