Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Come, my sisters — let's make goodness itself our jewelry and our charms. Let's join the holy and delight together in the love of the One.
The lamp of the teacher's wisdom burns steady and bright in my heart. The One, moved by sheer tenderness, has led me home to meet it.
This shabad opens, like the last, with a warm communal call — Come, O sisters — and immediately redefines what makes a soul beautiful. Let's make virtue our charms. In a culture where brides adorned themselves with jewelry and auspicious charms, Guru Ram Das says: let goodness be our ornament. The soul is made lovely not by what it wears but by the virtue it carries; the truest adornment is a good and loving heart. And this beauty is cultivated in company: let's join the Saints, and enjoy the pleasure of the Lord's Love.
The stanza then names the inner light that makes the meeting possible: the lamp of the Guru's spiritual wisdom burns steadily in my mind. Not a flickering, uncertain flame but a steady lamp — the wisdom of the teaching, once kindled, gives a constant inner light to see by. And the meeting itself is grace, and specifically grace as tenderness: the Lord, being pleased and moved by pity, has led me to meet Him. The One did not have to be impressed or repaid; it was moved by pity — by compassion for the longing soul — and so came to lead the soul home. The whole stanza is gentle: sisters adorned in goodness, a steady lamp of wisdom, and a tender One who, out of pure compassion, draws the soul to meet it.
What would it look like to 'wear' goodness as your real adornment — and whose company helps it shine?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI