Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
The truly rich person is the one who has the Name. The one who keeps the One in mind quietly shines.
Everything the people of the holy company do becomes beautiful. And Nanak melts, naturally and easily, into the One.
The shabad closes by redefining wealth and glory — the two things the world chases hardest. One who has obtained the Name is wealthy. Not the one with the fullest treasury, but the one who holds the Name, is the truly rich soul; the Name is the wealth that the previous shabads have called the only kind that lasts. And one who meditates on God is glorified — the real shining, the genuine glory, comes not from status or fame but from remembrance. The world's wealth and glory are revealed as counterfeit next to these.
The stanza then praises the Saadh Sangat once more: sublime are all the actions of those who join the Company of the Holy. Good company does not merely improve a few of your deeds; it makes all your actions sublime, beautiful, lifted — because the orientation of the whole life is changed by the company it keeps. And the shabad ends in the quietest possible note of arrival: servant Nanak is intuitively absorbed into the Lord — sahaj, naturally, effortlessly. After the question of how to behold the Beloved (humble service), the survey of paths (the simple Name), the work of grace (the un-hated heart), and the redefinition of wealth and glory (the Name, remembrance, the Sangat), the soul simply melts into the One — not by a final heroic effort, but naturally, the way a drop slips into water once it touches the sea.
What would change if you measured wealth and glory by remembrance and good company rather than by status and fame?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI