Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
You created the entire universe — and You Yourself sustain it. All the nourishment comes from You.
Some people eat by practicing fraud and deceit — and from their mouths they drop falsehood and lies.
As it pleases You, You assign everyone their tasks. You are the one giving the work.
Some understand Truthfulness — and You give them an inexhaustible treasure.
Those who eat by remembering the Lord are prosperous. Those who forget Him stretch out their hands in need.
Two ways of sustaining oneself
The Pauree describes two kinds of people — not in terms of virtue and sin but in terms of what they are actually doing with the sustenance the Lord provides. The Lord creates and sustains everything. Two things happen with that sustenance:
Je kichhū khat khal vich khamāvday, tinhā muhu jhūṭhu boleā — "some eat and survive by practicing fraud and deceit; from their mouths they drop falsehood and lies." The fraud-eaters: they take the Lord's sustenance and use it in the service of deception. What comes out of their mouths (their words, their teaching, their engagement with others) is falsehood.
Sachā jān karāvai, tinh anant khajānā — "some understand Truthfulness; they are given the inexhaustible treasure." The truth-understanders receive the inexhaustible. Anant (without end, inexhaustible) is the opposite of the limited goods that fraud earns. Truth generates without limit.
"Those who eat by remembering the Lord are prosperous"
Har simrat khāvan dhannī, vinu simran hathu pasāre — "those who eat by remembering the Lord are prosperous, while those who do not remember Him stretch out their hands in need." The spiritual economy mirrors the material one: remembrance generates genuine prosperity; forgetting creates a begging condition. The hands stretched out in need — the image of the beggar — is the manmukh who forgot the source of all sustenance.
*What is the difference between earning something through deception versus earning it honestly? Even if the material result is the same — what is different inside?*
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI