Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
You may chant and meditate, live a hard, strict life and hold yourself back, and stay at holy places of pilgrimage;
give donations to charity and perform good deeds — but without the True One, what is the use of it all?
As you plant, so shall you harvest. Without virtue, this human life passes away in vain.
This one says that all our good religious habits only count when the True One is at the heart of them.
Guru Nanak lists many good things people do. Jap is repeating a prayer. Tap is living a hard, strict life. Sanjam is self-control. Staying at holy places, giving to charity, doing good deeds — he names them all. Then he asks: bin saachay ki-aa taas, "without the True One, what use is it all?"
He isn't saying these things are bad. He is saying they can't take the place of real change inside. They are like a school uniform. Wearing it neatly is good, but it doesn't make you a learner. What happens inside you does that.
Then comes a farming picture: jayhaa raadhay tayhaa lunai, "as you plant, so you harvest." This is the idea of karma: what you sow comes back to you. If the planting was not real, no outside activity changes the crop. Bin gun janam vinaas: without goodness inside, a life slips by and is wasted.
Have you ever performed a spiritual practice out of habit or obligation rather than genuine engagement? What does the difference feel like?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI