Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
The person who faces the Guru pours all their love into the One, and only the One. The Guru's word burns up their doubt and their feeling that there's some "other" thing besides the One. Then, right inside their own body, they do their real trading — and the treasure they earn is the True Name.
Here the song names the disease directly: dooja bharam — the doubt and confusion of "a second thing." After Pauri5 revealed that there is only the One, this stanza says the gurmukh lets the shabad burn away (jalaae) the stubborn feeling that there's anything separate — anything other than the One to chase or fear. This is dooja bhaav, the sense of duality, which Guru Amar Das calls the root of all separation. It's burned, not argued away — the shabad consumes it like fire consumes a knot.
The image that follows is wonderful and very Guru-Amar-Das: vanaj and vaapaara — trade and business — done "kaaiaa andar," inside the body. This is traditionally read as the grihast vision: your own ordinary embodied life is the marketplace where the real trading happens. You buy and sell, gain and lose, all day long — but the wise trader is accumulating the one treasure that doesn't fade: Naam nidhaan, the treasure of the Name.
So the gurmukh here is a person living the same embodied, working life as everyone else — but with their love locked onto the One (liv laae) and the illusion of separateness burned away. The marketplace is the same; the merchant has simply learned what's actually worth buying.
If your daily life is a marketplace, what are you spending your time and attention "buying" — and is it the kind of treasure that lasts?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI