Naam, the Name, is the central term of Sikh spiritual practice and among the most difficult to render. It does not mean a particular word to be repeated, though particular words are used. It names God's self-revelation, the divine reality as it makes itself available to be known, present throughout creation and in the human heart. The Guru Granth Sahib states that the Name pervades everything and that everything is sustained by it.
The practice is naam simran, remembrance of the Name, and naam japna, its repetition. It may be silent or vocal, solitary or congregational, and in its congregational form it is kirtan, the singing of the scripture's hymns, which is the principal Sikh act of worship. The tradition is explicit that remembrance is not a technique for producing an experience but the means by which haumai is dissolved and the person is brought into alignment with hukam.
Naam japna stands as one of three duties commonly summarised as the Sikh way of life, alongside kirat karni, honest labour, and vand chakna, sharing with others. That the three are always stated together is the point of them: Sikh teaching rejects the renunciant model outright, insisting that the Name is remembered in the midst of work and family life rather than by withdrawal from either, and Guru Nanak's recorded dialogues with the Nath yogis in the Siddh Gosht are the tradition's classic statement of that rejection.
The gift of the Name is held to come by grace, gur prasad, the last term of the Mul Mantar, and through the Guru; and since the guruship passed to the scripture, the Name is encountered in the shabad, the divine Word. Naam, shabad and Guru are therefore closely interlocked in Sikh usage, and commentators generally treat them as three aspects of one reality rather than as three separate things that happen to be related.