Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
You are beyond all qualities, and you are full of every wonderful quality. You are the one who gives peace. You need nothing at all — and yet you are also the one who tastes and enjoys everything, soaked in the color of delight. Only you understand your own ways; only you can hold and care for your own self.
This pauri holds together opposites that ordinary logic says cannot both be true — and insists that the One is both. Toon nirgun sargun sukhdaata — "you are nirgun (without qualities, the formless absolute) and sargun (with qualities, present in all forms), the giver of peace." We met nirgun and sargun in Shabad 10: the divine as both the unmanifest beyond and the One in everything. Here they are simply stated side by side as a single truth. The One is not either the abstract absolute or the personal presence in things; it is both at once.
Then a second, even bolder pair: toon nirbaan rasee-aa rang raataa — "you are nirbaan (in serene detachment, needing nothing, beyond all desire) and [also] rasee-aa (the relisher, the enjoyer of flavors) rang raataa (dyed in delight)." This is a stunning paradox. Nirbaan is the cool, detached one who wants nothing; rasee-aa rang raataa is the warm one drenched in enjoyment and delight. How can the same One be utterly detached and utterly delighting? Yet the verse insists: both. The One renounces nothing and grasps nothing, and therefore can enjoy everything freely, without clinging. Perfect detachment and perfect delight are not enemies; in the One, they are the same. (Recall Shabad 8: aap nirbaanee aape bhoga.)
The closing lines bow before the mystery: apne kartab aape jaaneh, aape tudh samaaleeai — "you alone jaaneh (know) your own kartab (doings, ways), and you alone samaaleeai (hold, sustain, take care of) yourself." After listing all these paradoxes, the seeker admits: only the One can understand the One. The mind that tried to grasp how the One can be formless-and-formed, detached-and-delighting, finally lets go — you alone know your own ways. This is humility before the infinite (recall keemat kahan na jaaee, Shabad 12). And there is something tender in aape tudh samaaleeai — the One holds and cares for itself; it needs nothing outside to sustain it. It is self-complete, self-knowing, holding together all its own opposites. The verse leaves the mind in awe rather than understanding — which is exactly the Wahe (wonder) at the heart of the path.
The One both "needs nothing" and "enjoys everything." Can you imagine enjoying something fully without needing it or clinging to it? What would that kind of free delight feel like?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI