Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Bathe in the waters of goodness. Apply the scented oil of truth to your body. Then your face will become radiant.
This is the gift that outweighs a hundred thousand ordinary gifts.
Take your troubles to the one who is the source of all — the one who can actually do something about them.
This pauri plays with ritual purification imagery — bathing, anointing with oil, making oneself presentable for the divine presence — and gives it an inner meaning.
In Guru Nanak's time, ritual bathing at sacred rivers (and the endless debates about which river was holiest) was central to Hindu religious practice. He consistently redirects: the bath that matters is the inner bath. The oil that transforms is truth.
"The gift of 100,000 gifts" — this hyperbolic valuation appears throughout Gurbani. Inner alignment is the gift that makes all other gifts possible.
If you could wash something on the inside — a feeling, a habit, a fear — what would it be?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI