Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Give your heart's service to the One, and to nothing pretending to be the One.
Serve the real thing and your deepest wishes come true; pour yourself out for a substitute, and the whole effort just leaks away into nothing.
The shabad opens with a clean rule: serve the One, not "another." The "another" is anything we make ultimate that isn't — status, approval, a mask, a possession. The promise and warning are symmetrical: real devotion bears the fruit of the heart's desires, while devotion aimed at a substitute simply drains a life away. This is not a threat; it is a description of how misplaced love actually behaves — it costs everything and returns nothing.
What is one 'substitute' you sometimes treat as if it were the most important thing in the world?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI