Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
The True One is reached only by being true — nothing fake works. By the Guru's kindness your inside gets soaked through with that truth, like a cloth dropped in water. Then, sitting in a good and peaceful place, you sing about the One — and notice: it's actually the One who plants that truth in you and helps you trust it.
"The True One is pleased with truth, and only truth" — sachaa sacho sach pateejai. The line almost stutters with the word sach, three times in a row, hammering home that there is no shortcut around being real. You cannot impress reality with a performance. Only genuineness reaches the Genuine. This is the answer to the manmukh's cleverness back in stanza two: truth, not trickery.
The verb bheejai is wonderful — it means to become drenched, soaked through, the way a cloth left in water goes from damp to saturated. And it happens "by Guru's grace" — gur parsaadee. You don't soak yourself; you're soaked when you rest in the water. The whole composition's dye imagery is here again: water, soaking, the inside changing color.
The last move is the most humbling and the most freeing: "aapay — He Himself — inspires us to accept His truth." Even your turning toward truth is His doing. This is gurprasad at its deepest: grace isn't a reward for your effort; it's the One revealing itself, even arranging the moment when you finally say yes. You don't manufacture your own awakening. It is the One, in you, recognizing itself.
When have you noticed that wanting to do the right thing felt less like willpower and more like something arriving in you?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI