Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
The One made Shiva and Shakti — mind and matter — and the Creator keeps them both moving in the flow of the One's will.
Keeping that flow going, the One watches over everything. How rare are those who, through the Guru, come to understand this.
They break their ropes and become free. They keep the Shabad living in their minds.
Those the One makes followers of the Guru turn their loving attention to the One alone.
Nanak says: the One is the Creator, and the One makes the flow of life known.
Siv sakat aap upaa-ay kai kartaa aapay hukam vartaa-ay — "He Himself created Shiva and Shakti; the Creator Himself enforces His hukam through them." Shiv-Shakti is classical Indian thought's first pair of opposites: consciousness and energy, the unmoved and the moving, mind and matter (as the literal translation glosses), honored with deep devotion in many traditions. In a single line both are placed inside the One: both are created, and both run on the One's command. The move parallels the bani's treatment of Maya (verse 10 — the enchantress is His own device) and the Gurus' consistent handling of the devas: every cosmic function, however exalted, is a limb of the One (Siree Raag's Raag Gauree Shabad 38 dissolves the same pair). Nothing — not even the fundamental polarity of existence — stands outside or beside the One.
How it is known comes next: gurmukh kisai bujhaa-ay — to some rare one, He reveals this, through the Guru. And how one is set free: torhay banDhan hovai mukat — such a one breaks the bonds and is liberated, sabad man vasaa-ay — enshrining the Word. Liberation here is freedom from seeing everything as split in two: bondage is believing the twos are final; freedom is seeing the One wearing both costumes. Even becoming gurmukh is not self-made: jis no aap karay — whom He Himself makes so.
For a child, the pair can be pictured as energy and matter, or the dancer and the dance: the pairs are real as play, not as ultimate rivals. One music; many dances.
Can you think of two things that seem like opposites but need each other to exist?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI