Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
How great the real One is — you could never put a price on it or measure it. Its creative power, its endless gifts, are far too vast to fully describe. Those who love it stay truly alive by remembering it, over and over, treasuring the living Word inside their hearts like the best thing they own.
The first two lines are an honest admission of limits: "keem na paa-ee" — the value can't be calculated; "kahnaa na jaa-ee" — it can't be put into words. This matters. A lot of religion pretends to have the One pinned down, measured, fully explained. Guru Arjan does the opposite — he keeps pointing at the unmeasurable nature of sach. Kudrat (the creative power, all of nature) is so vast that any description falls short. To stand honestly before reality is to admit that it overflows your mind. Wonder — Waheguru as the exclamation of awe — begins exactly where measuring ends.
But here's the beautiful turn in the third line. If the One is unmeasurable and indescribable, how do you relate to it at all? Not by understanding it — by living it. "Dhi-aa-ay dhi-aa-ay jeeveh" — they live by remembering, again and again. You can't wrap your mind around the ocean, but you can swim in it. You can't describe the One, but you can hold it alive in your awareness and let it become the thing that keeps you alive. Simran is how you relate to something too big to grasp: not by capturing it, but by participating in it.
And what they treasure is "sach sabad" — the true shabad, the living Word. The shabad is the One made audible, the vibration of reality that you can receive even when you can't explain the reality. It's the doorway: the infinite, unmeasurable One reaches the small human heart through the shabad, which the heart can hold and treasure. The boys don't need to understand everything to be connected — they need to keep the living Word alive in them.
What's something so big or beautiful that words fall short of it? How do you connect with it anyway?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI