Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
There are those who are truly chosen — approved and honored. They look radiant wherever they go, at the highest courts of the world. The Guru of the chosen ones is the one awareness itself — meditation on the oneness.
And yet — if anyone tried to count all that the creator creates and does, there would simply be no end to it.
The great bull of dharma holds the earth in its place — it is the son of compassion, strung together by contentment. One who truly understands this becomes a person of truth. And even so — what a weight the bull holds.
So many worlds beyond this world. So many more. What force holds all of that weight and keeps it in place?
The names and colors of every kind of living being — all of it written by the ever-flowing pen of the oneness. Who could even begin to write this account? Just imagine the scroll it would take.
What power. What beauty. What gifts — no one can know their full extent.
With one word — one act — the entire expanse of creation came into being. From that one, hundreds of thousands of rivers of life flowed outward.
What could I possibly say to take all of this in? A single moment of devotion could never be enough — I would give myself to this wonder again and again. Whatever pleases you is what is good. You are always here, always whole and eternal, O formless one.
It begins with the people who are truly chosen, widens out to the whole universe, and then bows.
The panch, the chosen ones, are not chosen by birth, family or ritual. Their Guru is ayk dhiaan — one-pointed attention. What makes them chosen is inside them: how they pay attention, and how closely they live with the One. The teaching tradition points out a small detail. Raajaan, "king," is singular. So the chosen do not only look fine in the courts of many earthly kings. They shine in the court of the one King, the King of kings. Their standing is not social. It is a standing before the One. In Gurbani, panch can also mean five — the five elements that make the body, the five senses, the five virtues to grow. Read that way, the pauri also describes an ordinary person who, by bringing those virtues to life, becomes welcome in that same court.
Then comes an old picture. Many people in India believed the earth rested on the back of a bull. Guru Nanak does not laugh at the picture. He tells us what the bull really is: dhoul dharam — the bull is dharma, right living. Compassion (da-i-aa) is its parent, and contentment (santokh) is the thread that holds it together. So what holds the world up is not a list of random rules. It is kindness, kept steady by being at peace with what is.
Keetaa pasaao ayko kavao / tis tay ho-ay lakh daree-ao — with one word the whole of creation spread out, and from it flowed hundreds of thousands of rivers. Others have reached for the same wonder: "Let there be light" in Genesis, the Word (logos) of the Greek thinkers, and the Big Bang, when scientists say the universe began from a single point. Guru Nanak is not doing science. He points at the same mystery from the heart: everything that exists flows from one beginning.
The tradition notices his choice of picture: not mountains, not lakes, but rivers. A river never stands still. The Greek thinker Heraclitus said no one steps into the same river twice, and Buddhist teachers say the same. By the next moment, the water, the riverbed and everything living in it have moved on. So creation did not happen once, long ago, and stop. The "one word" is still being spoken. The ever-flowing pen is still writing. Your own life is one of those rivers — new every moment, never quite the same twice.
The ending — jo tudh bhaavai saa-ee bhalee kaar / too sadaa salaamat nirankaar — says: whatever pleases You is good; You are forever safe, the Formless One (nirankaar). This is not giving up. It is trust — not because nothing hard ever happens, but because the One who made all this beauty with one word cares about what it made. These closing lines appear here for the first time, and they return to close the next several pauris too.
When you look at the night sky, or think about how the universe could have begun from a single point — what do you feel? Small? Amazed? Both? What does that feeling tell you about your place in all of this?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI