Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
You are pure — nothing can ever stain You. No one can reach Your edge, measure You, or find anything to compare You to. Everyone and everything turns toward You and remembers You, because You are the One who is truly real, the Maker of it all.
Every living being belongs to You, and You are the One who gives to them all. So remember the One, all of you who love what is true — the One is the very thing that lifts away every pain.
And here is the wonder: the One is the master, and the One is also the servant. There is no second anywhere. Beside something that vast, how small a single one of us is — small, and still completely held.
This is praise for the One, who is pure and has no edge.
This hymn is called So Purakh. Many Sikhs sing it each evening as part of Rehras Sahib, the evening prayer. It opens Raag Aasaa with nothing but praise.
Niranjan means "without stain." Maya is the pull of the world's shiny things, and it can never smudge the One. Think of sunlight shining on mud. The light touches the mud, but the light stays clean.
Then comes an amazing line: har aapay thaakur har aapay sayvak jee — the One is the master, and the One is also the servant. This is Ik Onkar, "there is One." There is no second anywhere. So the one who serves and the One who is served are the same.
The line about how small we are is not a put-down. Next to something endless, anyone is small. That is simply true. And the whole hymn says the small one is still loved and held.
What changes inside you when you feel both very small and completely held at the same time?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI