Kirat Karni, Vand Chhakna and Naam Japna

The three principles are meant to be held together. Remembering God gives life its centre. Honest work meets a person's needs without depending on others. Sharing stops wealth from becoming greed. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism calls them the triple principle under Sikh ethics.

The model is the householder. A Sikh is to live in the world, with family and work, and not as a hermit or a wandering beggar. The Sikh Rehat Maryada says a Sikh should live by honest, lawful work and see the mouth of someone poor as Guru Ji's offering box.[EoS][Src]

Kirat means work done with one's own hands and effort, in an honest calling. It rules out exploiting others. Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji compares taking what is rightfully another's to eating what one's own faith forbids (ang 141), and asks how those who feed on other people's blood can claim a pure mind (ang 140).

Janamsakhi tradition tells of Guru Ji preferring plain food earned by a poor carpenter over a rich man's banquet. The story is told in later narrative literature, and it is valued for what it teaches about honest labour. In Sikh teaching no trade is treated as low.[EoS]

Vand chhakna means sharing what one earns or eats. On ang 1245 Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji advises against trusting a self-styled teacher who lives by begging. He says the one who knows the way is the person who eats from honest labour and gives some of it away.

This teaching stands behind two institutions. Langar is the free kitchen where all eat together. Daswandh is the custom of giving a tenth of one's earnings for shared purposes. Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji's own farm at Kartarpur, which supported his family and the common kitchen, is the early example in the sources.[EoS][EoS][EoS]