Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Just like a wave that rises up out of the water and then sinks back, melting into the very water it came from — that is how my little light merged back into the great Light. Nanak says: the doors of my confusion have been broken open, and I will never go wandering off, lost, ever again. I am home for good.
The shabad closes with one of the most perfect images of oneness in all of spiritual poetry: the wave and the water. Jal tarang jiu jaleh samaaiaa — "as the tarang (wave) of jal (water) samaaiaa (merges back) into the jal (water)." A wave rises out of the ocean, seems for a moment to be a separate thing with its own shape and crest — and then it sinks back and is simply water again. Here is the truth: the wave was never separate from the water. It was always water, briefly taking the shape of a wave. Its "separateness" was real as a shape but never real as a substance.
Tiu jotee sang jot milaaiaa — "just so, [my] jot (light) merged into the [great] Jot (Light)." This is the consummation of Ik Onkar and the answer to the whole drama of separation. Many readers hear the image as saying that the individual soul (the wave, the small light) was never truly cut off from the One (the ocean, the great Light) — that it only appeared separate, the way a wave appears separate from the sea. On that reading the "meeting" of the previous verse is understood at its deepest: less two things coming together than the dropping of a separation that was only ever felt. The wave returns to the water it is made of.
The final lines seal it: bhram kate kivaarhaa, bahurh na hoeeai jaulaa — "the kivaarhaa (the doors, the barriers) of bharam (illusion, the wandering-confusion) have been kate (cut, broken open), and bahurh na — never again — will [I] be jaulaa (a wanderer, one who goes off and roams)." Recall the restless wandering (dhaavai, bharam) of so many earlier shabads — the lost yogi, the seeker hunting outside. It is over. The doors of confusion are broken; there is nowhere left to wander to, because the seeker has realized she was never separate from what she sought. A wave cannot wander away from the ocean. The arc completes: everything is within, not outside (Rahao); the inner nectar rains and the soul plays (P1); the long-separated greens and meets (P2); and finally the wave merges into the water, the illusion of separation breaks, and the wandering ends forever (P3). Signed with the lineage's name, Nanak. The seeker is home — and discovers she never actually left.
A wave looks separate from the sea, but it's always just water. If you are like a wave in a great ocean, what does that say about whether you're ever really alone?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI