ਓਹੁ ਸਭ ਤੇ ਊਚਾ ਸਭ ਤੇ ਸੂਚਾ ਜਾ ਕੈ ਹਿਰਦੈ ਵਸਿਆ ਭਗਵਾਨੁ ॥
oh sabh tay oochaa sabh tay soochaa jaa kai hirdai vasi-aa bhagvaan.
He, within whose heart the Lord abides, is the highest of all, and the purest of all.
ਜਨ ਨਾਨਕੁ ਤਿਸ ਕੇ ਚਰਨ ਪਖਾਲੈ ਜੋ ਹਰਿ ਜਨੁ ਨੀਚੁ ਜਾਤਿ ਸੇਵਕਾਣੁ ॥੪॥੪॥
jan naanak tis kay charan pakhaalai jo har jan neech jaat sayvkaan. ||4||4||
Servant Nanak washes the feet of thM at humble servant of the Lord; he may be from a low class family, but he is now the Lord's servant. ||4||4||
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
The one in whose heart the One truly lives is the highest and the purest of all.
And I would gladly honor the footsteps of such a person — no matter where they come from, they are the One's own.
What makes a person high is not where they came from, but what lives in their heart.
The shabad's seal completes the leveling: highness and purity (oochaa ... soochaa) are located not in birth but in jaa kai hirdai vasi-aa bhagvaan — the heart where the One dwells. Nanak's image of washing the feet of even a neech jaat (someone the world ranked low) is a deliberate reversal of caste hierarchy — honor flows to the devotion, never to the birth.
A Question to Sit With
Who is someone you admire for who they are inside rather than their status?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI
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