Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
You are the master — and then, somehow, you are also the servant who serves the master. You are the hidden one no one can see, and you are also the One out in the open, plain for all to behold. Nanak, your servant, will sing your wonders forever. Just give me one tiny glance of your kindness — even for a single moment, look at me with love.
The shabad closes with the final and most intimate pair, and then a small, tender request. Toon thaakur, sevak fun aape — "you are the thaakur (master), and then again (fun) you are the sevak (servant) yourself." This is the most radical statement of oneness in the whole shabad. We have just spent a whole chapter (Shabad 23) on the relationship between the master and the servant. Now Guru Arjan reveals the deepest secret: the master and the servant are the same One. The One is the Beloved and the devotee, the worshipped and the worshipper. When you serve the One, it is the One serving itself; when you love the One, it is the One loving itself.
Toon gupat pargat prabh aape — "you are gupat (hidden, unmanifest) and pargat (revealed, manifest), yourself, O One." The hidden and the visible are both it (echoing sookham/asthoolee from the Rahao). There is nothing the One is not — not master nor servant, not hidden nor seen.
And then, after this dizzying vision of total oneness, comes the most human and touching turn: Naanak daas sadaa gun gaavai, ik bhoree nadar nihaaleeai — "Nanak, [your] daas (servant), will sadaa (forever) sing your praises; [please] nihaaleeai (bless, look upon) [me] with your nadar (glance of grace) for even ik bhoree (a tiny moment, a fraction)." Here is the beauty: having declared that master and servant are both the One, the seeker still asks, humbly and lovingly, for just one glance. The grand philosophy does not cancel the intimate longing. Even knowing all is one, the heart still wants the personal touch — the nadar, the loving look, the grace, for even a bhoree, the smallest instant. This is the genius of bhakti: the highest non-dual realization and the tenderest personal love coexist. The seeker holds both — all is You, and please look at me. The arc completes: the One is tree and branch, ocean and bubble (Rahao), thread and bead (P1), detached and delighting (P2), master and servant, hidden and seen (P3) — and through it all, the small servant simply longs for one loving glance. Signed with the lineage's name, Nanak. The infinite oneness and the intimate longing are, in the end, one love.
After saying "everything is You," the seeker still asks for one personal loving glance. Why do you think someone could believe everything is connected and still long for an intimate, personal touch? Are those two things really opposites?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI