Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
You are the great First One, the endless tree of life; I am a bird perched on Your branches.
Give Nanak the spotless Name; through the ages he sings the praises of the Word.
The Ashtapadee closes with a tender image of dependence and rest: the One is "the infinite tree of life," and "I am a bird perched on Your branches." The bird does not hold up the tree; it simply rests in it, sheltered and fed. After all the shabad's movement — off the status-ladder, out of the fear of death, past the slanderers, through the alchemy of good company — the resting place is this: a small bird at home in a vast, living tree, singing. Belonging, again, is the whole of it.
Where do you get to simply rest, held by something far larger than you, with nothing to prove?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI