Call Yourself Good and Goodness Leaves the Room
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Do a million good deeds with me-me-me running inside them, and you have earned only exhaustion - it all leaks away.
Do heroic disciplines with conceit at the core, and you just keep circling - up, down, up, down.
All that effort, and the soul never softens - how could such hardness enter the court of tenderness? Call yourself good, and goodness backs away from you.
But the one whose mind becomes the dust of all - Nanak says, their goodness needs no announcing. It shines on its own.
Call yourself good, and goodness leaves the room.
Here the song looks at good deeds themselves. Kot karam karai ha-o Dhaaray — millions of good deeds, done with ego, bring only trouble. The deeds were not bad. But the ego's name was written on every one, as the one who gets the prize.
Then comes a line worth carving over every doorway. Aapas ka-o jo bhalaa kahaavai — whoever calls themselves good, tiseh bhalaa-ee nikat na aavai — goodness does not come near them. The claim and the goodness push each other away, like two magnets facing the wrong way. Goodness is a shy guest. Announce it, and it slips out the door.
The test is something you can feel. Anik jatan kar aatam nahee darvai — after all that effort, the soul is still not softened. Softening is the whole point. Discipline that makes a heart harder has failed the only test that matters.
The verse ends with Sukhmani's favorite posture. The mind becomes "the dust of all," humble before everyone. And the surprise comes full circle. The one who claims nothing has a name that shines spotlessly pure.
Have you ever done something kind and then spoiled it a little by making sure everyone knew? What got spoiled?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI