Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
You are the tree, and the branches blossoming out of it are also you. You started as something so tiny and invisible, and grew into something huge you can see and touch. You are the whole ocean — and you are also the little foam and bubbles floating on top of it. Wherever I look, I cannot find anything that is not you.
This Rahao begins a sustained meditation on Ik Onkar — the oneness in which there is no separation between the One and anything else. And it does it through pairs that the mind usually keeps apart, showing that both are the One. Toon ped, saakh teree foolee — "you are the ped (tree), and your saakh (branches) have blossomed." The tree and the branches that grow from it are not two things; the branch is the tree extending itself. So with the One and all creation: the world is not separate from the One but the One branching out.
Toon sookham hoaa asthoolee — "you, the sookham (subtle, invisible, infinitely fine), became asthoolee (gross, large, physical, manifest)." The same One is both the invisible subtle essence and the solid visible world. The unseen became the seen; both are it. This dissolves the split between "spirit" and "matter" — they are one reality at two densities.
The most beautiful pair is the last: toon jalnidh, toon fen budbudaa — "you are the jalnidh (ocean) and you are the fen (foam) and budbudaa (bubbles)." Look closely: the foam and the bubbles on the ocean's surface are made of the very same water as the ocean. A bubble looks like a separate little thing, briefly, with its own shape — and then it pops and is just water again (recall the wave of Shabad 24). You and I and every separate-seeming thing are like the bubbles: appearing distinct for a moment, but made entirely of the one water, and destined to merge back. The conclusion seals it: tudh bin avar na bhaaleeai — "apart from you, I can find (bhaaleeai) nothing else." There is no second thing anywhere. The Rahao sets the whole shabad's project: to look at everything — tree, branch, subtle, gross, ocean, bubble — and recognize it all as the One.
A bubble looks separate but is just ocean water in a temporary shape. If everything — including you — is like that, what does it mean to say "there is nothing that isn't the One"?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI