Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
The Guru's Shabad is a jewel, set with diamonds.
The mind that holds on to this jewel, the way a ring holds a stone, melts into the Shabad.
The mind tuned to the Shabad holds love for the True One.
The One is the diamond, and the One is the jewel. Whoever is blessed with understanding knows its worth.
Nanak says: the Shabad is a jewel, set with diamonds.
Gur kaa sabad ratann hai heeray jit jarhaa-o — "the Guru's Shabad is a jewel studded with diamonds." After the warning about kachee bani (verse 24) comes the positive jewellery: the true Word as ratan (jewel) set with heera (diamonds). Gurbani's gem-vocabulary is always double-edged — jewels are the world's costliest objects and its most common counterfeit; only an assayer knows the difference — hence the closing condition, jis no day-ay bujhaa-ay: only one who is given understanding knows the worth.
The mechanism in the middle is the verse's real teaching: sabad ratan jit man laagaa ayhu ho-aa samaa-o — the mind attached to the jewel merges into it. Samaa-o: absorption, dissolution-into. Gurmat's law of attention: the mind takes the shape of what it dwells on (the Aasaa shabads' 'we become like the One we soak in'). Attachment is not optional for minds — they always fasten somewhere; the only question is the setting. Fastened on Maya, the mind scatters (verse 24); fastened on the Shabad, it merges into what the Shabad carries.
And what it carries is the final identification: aapay heeraa ratan aapay — He Himself is the diamond, Himself the jewel. The Word is not a container pointing at an absent treasure; the treasure is in the pointing. This is why the bani can promise merger through mere attention to words — because these words are not kachee, not hollow: the One is present in them as sparkle is present in stone.
If your attention is glue, what has it been stuck to this week — and is that thing worthy of you?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI