Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Your body and your social standing — what family you're from, how important people think you are — none of that comes with you when you go. In the place where life is finally weighed, what saves you is only the real, true living you actually did. The ones who serve the True Guru are the truly rich, because both here and beyond, they are soaked in the **Naam**.
This verse says that your body and your rank in society don't travel on with you. Only the truth you lived does.
Dayhee jaat na aagai jaa-ay — body and jaat don't go onward. Jaat means caste, the social group people were ranked by at birth. In Guru Amar Das's time, everyone was expected to bow to that ranking. He says it is kachee — passing, weightless in what truly matters. The same goes for every ranking today: popularity, money, titles, followers. None of it comes on the final journey.
So what does count? Sach kamaa-ay — earning truth, true actions. Thinking good thoughts or feeling devoted isn't enough by itself. You have to live it, in how you actually treat people. This is the way of the grihast, the householder. The holy life happens in real deeds, in ordinary days with family and work, not in lofty feelings alone.
Then the verse changes what "rich" means: satgur sayvan say Dhanvantay — those who serve the True Guru are the rich ones. The world counts wealth in things that fade, like a game score that resets. The Guru counts it in the Naam, the Name, which is sach — real and lasting. Aithai othai — here and hereafter — settles it. A soul soaked in the Name isn't rich only after death. It is rich right now, carrying a fullness no loss can touch. True wealth is what you can't lose.
If everything you owned and every label people put on you disappeared, what would be left of "you"? Is that part being fed?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI