Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Says Kabir: to the one swept up in cravings — pause, look inside your own heart, and really see.
Your house may hold a fortune — countless horses and elephants, every kind of riches. But in my house lives the One. And that is enough.
Kabir ends by saying: you may own a fortune, but I have the One at home, and that is enough.
He speaks to madan kay maatay, someone swept up by desire. He does not scold. He invites them to look into their own heart and think.
Then comes the punch line of the whole shabad. You may own hundreds of thousands of horses and elephants, the riches of a king. Against all that, Kabir sets only the One, living in his home. He would not trade. Think of a kid with a small room but a loving family, next to a kid with a huge room full of toys and no one to play with.
Kabir was a weaver. Elsewhere in the Guru Granth Sahib he calls himself jaat julaahaa, a weaver by birth. So his words carry extra strength. A person's worth is measured by love, not by what family they come from or what they own.
If you could keep only one thing that money can't buy, what would it be?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI