Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
I serve the True Teacher, and the teacher's word is beautiful — it makes life beautiful. Through that word, the Name of the One comes to live in my mind. The spotless One washes away the grime of my "me, me, me," and then I am truly respected in the place that matters.
The key picture here is dirt and cleaning. Haumai — the puffed-up sense of being a separate self — is called mail, filth, a stain. And the One is nirmal, spotless, stainless. Bring a dirty cloth near clear water and the water does the cleaning; you don't have to scrub the cloth against itself. In the same way, when the Naam comes to dwell in you, the stain of ego just lifts. Purity isn't something you grind out by effort — it's what's left when the One washes through.
Notice the order: first you serve the Satguru, then the shabad brings the Name to dwell, then the ego-stain is removed. Cleaning is the result of the Name arriving, not a chore you complete first to earn it. You don't make yourself spotless and then invite the One in; you invite the One in and become spotless.
And the reward is sobha — honor — "at the True Court." This is the honor of being genuinely clean, not of looking impressive. It loops back to the tree of the opening stanza: the One gives freely, washes freely, and what's left in you is real beauty rather than a performance.
Is there a "stain" in you that you've been fighting alone, when maybe you need to let something larger wash through instead?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI