Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
There is only One. And the One is found by the True Guru's grace — a gift that is always here, waiting for an open heart.
Follow the Guru's teaching, and keep the Naam of the One tucked safe inside your heart, like your greatest treasure.
Become a servant of the One's servants, and put an end to your ego (haumai — the feeling of being a separate self) and to the poison of wrong wanting.
Then you win the great prize of this life, and you never come home a loser.
Nanak says: blessed, blessed and so fortunate are those who taste the sweetness of the One through the Guru's teaching.
Keep the Naam as your treasure and take the humblest seat, and the ego loses its hold.
Raam naam nidhaan: the Naam is a nidhaan, a treasure, something you guard close to your heart. Daasan daasaa ho-ay rahu: be the servant of the servants. Think of the helper who stacks the chairs after everyone else has gone home. That humble place is exactly where the ego, the feeling of "me first," fades away.
Janam padaarath, the precious gift of being alive, is then won, and won for good. This salok opens Kaanraa ki Vaar, a long ballad by Guru Ram Das, sung to the tune of an old ballad about Musa.
What is something you carry inside that no one could ever take away from you?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI