Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
There is no other power apart from the One. The same Oneness both holds you safe and lets things go — beginnings and endings alike belong to it.
There is only one power, and both beginnings and endings belong to it.
This is the Rahao, the "pause" line, the center of the shabad. Bin bhagvant naahee an ko-ay — apart from the One, there is no one else. Maarai raakhai ayko so-ay — the same One both keeps and lets go.
The older wording says the One "preserves and destroys." It can be heard as one single flow that both holds and releases. It is not two powers fighting each other. It is one existence, the hukam, the flow of all that is. Think of a tree through the year. Spring brings the leaves and autumn lets them fall, and both are the same tree's life. Nothing falls outside the One's care.
What feels safer — thinking many powers rule the world, or one that holds it all?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI