Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
He covers His servant's faults - the way a parent quietly mends what a child tore.
He guards the servant's honor Himself, and dresses him in greatness. He is the one who set the Name on the servant's tongue in the first place.
No one has measured the Master - and no one matches His servant either. The servant of the One stands highest of the high.
Whoever the One takes into His own service becomes known in all ten directions.
He covers His servants' faults, the way family covers for family.
The first line is one of the most comforting in the Guru Granth Sahib: apunay jan kaa pardaa dhaakai — He covers His servant's faults. A pardaa is a curtain or cloth. He draws a cloth over the mistake. He does not show it off to teach a lesson. He does not forgive only after a public list of wrongs. He covers it, like a parent quietly mending a torn shirt at home. The honor stays safe while the mending happens in private.
Honor, pat, runs through the whole pauri. In Guru Arjan's world, a family's honor was its most carefully guarded treasure. Here the job of guarding it moves to the Master: apnay sayvak kee aap pat raakhai — He Himself keeps His servant's honor. So the servant can stop defending their own reputation.
This is how fearlessness before criticism works in real life. What is not yours to guard cannot be taken from you by gossip.
Then the praise climbs: no one equals the One's servant, who stands highest of the high. Sukhmani keeps coming back to this surprise. The lowest place turns out to be the highest. And fame in all ten directions comes to the one who stopped chasing it.
How much energy do you spend defending how you look to others? What would you do with that energy if someone trustworthy took over the job?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI