Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Those who praise — who keep praising — even they cannot fully grasp the awareness of the oneness. Even the deepest praise falls short of what is being praised.
Rivers and streams pour into the ocean from every direction. And still they do not know how big the ocean is.
A king who has mountains of property and oceans of wealth — if he forgets the oneness in his heart — is not worth even an ant. The ant, going about its small life without forgetting, carries more genuine worth.
Praise can never measure the One — and a small life lived close to the One is worth more than a king's riches.
Two pictures sit side by side. The first is rivers and streams flowing into the ocean. The ocean is big enough to take in the praise and love of every being in every age, and still it is not filled up or measured. The rivers also show what real devotion is like. Water runs downhill without being pushed. In the same way, love for the One is not forced. It is the natural flow of the heart back toward its source, once haumai — the feeling of being separate — stops blocking the way.
But the rivers do not know how big the ocean is. Even those who pour their whole hearts into the One cannot fully understand what they are flowing into. This is not meant to discourage anyone. It invites humility. You can be inside the ocean. You cannot measure it.
The teaching tradition adds a careful note: every picture has edges. If you imagine yourself as a river on a long trip toward a faraway ocean, you have put yourself in the wrong place. You are not travelling toward the One. You are a wave that is already in the ocean and has simply forgotten. The drop never left the sea. So praise and remembering are not a journey somewhere else. They are a way of waking up to where you already are. And once a river meets the sea, no one can say which water was river and which was ocean. The separate self is no longer there to find.
The second picture is the king and the ant (keerhee tul). In Guru Nanak's day, a king stood at the very top — power, money, status. Guru Nanak turns that upside down. A king with mountains of property and oceans of wealth who has forgotten the One is not worth one ant that remembers. The point is not that ants are holy. It is that worldly rank has nothing to do with real closeness to the One. That closeness is what matters.
Have you ever met someone very successful or powerful who seemed empty inside? And someone very ordinary who seemed genuinely full? What made the difference between them?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI