Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
When you really taste the flavor of the Guru's word, you finally come to know your own true self. The way such people speak becomes clean and clear, because the word is in it. By serving the True One they find a peace that lasts — and they hold all the treasures of the Name right inside their own minds.
This stanza makes a quietly profound claim: sabdai saad jaaneh taa aap pachhaaneh — "when you taste the flavor of the shabad, you understand your own self." Tasting the word and knowing yourself are the same event. Why? Because what blocks self-knowledge is haumai — the ego's noisy story about who you are. When the shabad comes in with its true flavor, that false story quiets, and for the first time you see what you actually are underneath: not a separate little self, but part of the One.
Notice the chain reaction. Taste the shabad, know yourself, and then "nirmal bani" — your speech becomes clean. This is one of Guru Amar Das's recurring tests: inner change shows up in how you talk. A person soaked in the word speaks differently — more honestly, more kindly, with less ego in it. The inside and the outside line up. You can't fake clean speech for long; it flows from clean seeing.
And the reward is nau nidh — the "nine treasures," an old image for all the wealth there is. But notice where they're kept: man antar, inside the mind. Not in a vault, not in the world — inside you. This loops straight back to the opening paradox: lose the self, gain everything. Here's the everything. The nine treasures aren't out there to be acquired; they're enshrined within, revealed the moment you know your true self through the word.
Have you noticed that when your heart is clear, even the way you talk to people changes?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI