Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Sometimes a quiet voice inside says, You are powerful, you know so much, you have got it all figured out. That is pride talking, and it feels heavier than it looks.
I can set it down. I do not have to carry it.
Be kind to me, and let me become humble — as low and useful as the dust on the path where good people walk. There is a strange freedom in that smallness.
Abhimaan jor — the pride that clings to one's own power and cleverness — is the load this pauri asks us to put down (aapan gahu, restrain the self-conceit). The prayer to become santan kee dhoor, the dust of the feet of the good, is Gurbani's classic image of humility: the ego is not condemned but relieved, a disease set down rather than a crime punished. Guru Ram Das signs the shabad (jan naanak).
What is something you feel proud of that might feel lighter if you held it a little more humbly?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI