Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
There is only One. And the One is found by the True Guru's grace — a gift that is always here, waiting for an open heart.
Look around at everything there is — all of it is one single reality wearing a thousand faces.
The One is the buying and the selling, the giving and the receiving. There is no separate other running the show; it is all the One.
Everything you see is one Reality, wearing many different faces.
Ayk roop saglo paasaaraa means the whole wide world is the form of the One. It is like a single actor playing every part in a school play. The costumes change, but the same person is under each one.
Aapay banaj aap bi-uhaaraa means the One is both the trade and the trader. Picture a market. There is the shopkeeper, the buyer, and the thing being sold. Guru Arjan says the One is all of them at once.
This opens a long list of aapay, which means "the One itself." It runs through the whole shabad. Wherever you look for a second player, you find the same One on both sides.
If everything were secretly made of the same one thing, how might you treat the people and things around you?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI