Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
From three simple threads, the One wove the whole moving world.
The vast, dazzling world is only the One's shadow.
Undeceivable, unbreakable, unknowable, and kind,
gentle to the humble, always full of care.
No one can measure how great the One is,
and my whole heart bows in wonder before it.
The closing verse gives the vision its frame: from the teen gunaa (three qualities — the strands the old philosophy said the world is spun from) the One brought forth all of maa-i-aa, the shifting world — which is only the One's chhaa-i-aa, its shadow. This is a profound reframing: the dazzling world is real, but it is a shadow cast by the One, not the source of light itself. The verse ends not in theory but in wonder — bal bal jaa-ay, the heart bowing before what it cannot measure.
If the world is like a shadow, where would you look to find the light making it?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI