Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Saying one thing and doing another; talking big about a love the heart has never felt -
the One sees every heart from the inside and is not impressed by the show.
Preach what you do not practice, and you stay stuck in the same circles, life after life. But when the Formless One fills someone's inner being - the whole world learns from that person's teaching.
Only those You warm to, God, know You. Nanak falls at their feet.
The One reads hearts, not scripts.
This verse looks at the trickiest fake of all: holy talk with no love behind it. Rahat avar kachh avar kamaavat — he says one thing and does another. Man nahee pareet mukhahu gandh laavat — no love in the heart, yet big talk from the mouth.
The judge here is the One who cannot be fooled. Baahar bhaykh na kaahoo bheen — the One is not taken in by outward show. Bhaykh is the outward costume of religion. Think of a teacher who can tell the student who studied from the one who only looks busy.
Avar updaysai aap na karai — the one who teaches others but does not do it himself keeps coming and going, through birth and death. People across the Sikh tradition quote this line as a warning to anyone who teaches faith for a living. It is aimed at hollowness wherever it shows up, not at any one faith.
Against that person stands someone who barely needs to speak. Jis kai antar basai nirankaar — the one whose inner being is filled with the Formless One. Nirankaar means without form. By that person's teaching, the world is carried across. The pull comes from who they are, not from a performance.
Think of someone you learned goodness from. Did they lecture you, or did you just watch how they lived?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI