Find the Source and Stop Chasing Its Signposts

Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa

This stanza redefines everything people usually chase. Ridh sidh — worldly wealth and miraculous spiritual powers — were the great prizes seekers strained for: the yogi who wanted to fly or read minds, the householder who wanted riches. And sanjam — strict self-discipline, austerities, fasting — was the prize the hard-living seeker chased. Guru Amar Das sweeps all of them aside in one breath: for the gurmukh, the True One Himself soi is all of these. Why hunger for the powers when you have the source of all power? Why grind through austerities when you've found the thing austerity was supposed to lead to?

This is the gurmukh orientation in its fullness — and remember, gurmukh is a direction, not a fixed identity. It means "face turned toward the Guru, toward the light." Anyone can turn. The one who turns stops collecting the various trophies (wealth, powers, the merit-points of self-punishment) because they've seen that all of them were just substitutes — ways the ego tried to feel rich, special, or holy. The real thing makes the substitutes pointless.

And the path is gian — the spiritual wisdom of the Naam. Not the dry book-knowledge that wore out the pandit, but the living knowing that comes from the Name itself, the tasted knowing. Through it, mukat — liberation. The stanza ends where the whole song keeps ending: sache sach samavania, absorbed into the True. Truth practiced (sach kamaaveh) becomes truth merged-into. You don't just do truth; eventually you disappear into it.