Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Meeting with the True Guru, one comes to know — and by this meeting, one comes to chant the Name.
Without the True Guru, God is not found.
All have grown weary of performing religious rituals.
Satgur milai ta giaan-u hov-ai, naam japai aai — meeting the True Guru, understanding (giaan-u) arises; by this meeting, the Name is chanted. The sequence: Guru-meeting → understanding → Nam-chanting. The order matters: understanding comes from the meeting, not from studying; and the chanting that follows is the expression of understanding, not a technique preceding it.
Bin satgur, hari-u na paa-ee-ai, sar-ee-rik-a kar kar thak-ee — without the True Guru, the Lord is not obtained; people have grown weary (thak-ee — exhausted, tired out) doing physical religious acts (sar-ee-rik-a — bodily, physical). The physical religious acts: bowing, prostrating, performing rituals, making pilgrimages — all sar-ee-rik-a (bodily exertions). Done without the True Guru, without understanding, they produce exhaustion rather than liberation.
Thak-ee — tired, weary. This is among the most compassionate images in the GGS: people who are genuinely exhausted from religious practice that has not produced what it promised. Not condemned, not criticized — thak-ee. Tired. Guru Nanak sees the exhaustion and offers the diagnosis: not wrong effort, but the Guru was missing. Add the Guru and the same person's religious life transforms.
What is the spiritual exhaustion you have felt — from practice that didn't seem to be going anywhere? And what renewed it, or what might renew it?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI