Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
My heart is colored through with the One's praises — I sing them, and the One is what my heart loves most. Truth is like a ladder up to the Teacher; climbing it, I find real peace.
That peace comes with ease, because truth is what I love, and a truth-taught heart does not slip away.
The One cannot be tricked — not by ritual baths or showy giving or clever spiritual talk. Where the heart is real, the tangles of grasping and pretending fall quiet, and there is no falseness or doubt left. My heart is colored through with praise, and the One is what it loves.
The refrain frames it: mayraa man raataa gun ravai — my mind, dyed in His praises, sings them. gur kee pa-orhee saach kee — Truth is the ladder to the Teacher. The sharp middle line, aap achhli-o ki-o chhalai — the Undeceivable cannot be deceived — is aimed at empty ritual: isnaan, daan, majan (ceremonial bathing, showy charity, ritual dips) cannot substitute for a real heart. This is not an attack on any one tradition but on formalism anywhere — going through motions while the heart stays elsewhere. What the One responds to is koorh kapat na do-ee gone: no falseness, no double-mindedness.
What is the difference between doing something because it looks good and doing it because you truly mean it?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI