Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Every kind of living thing comes from You; every word that's spoken is Yours too. Yet without holding the Name, everyone wanders around confused and lost. It's by serving the Guru that you reach the One's Name — and without the True Teacher, nobody finds it.
This verse says everything belongs to the One, and yet we can still be lost if we don't notice.
Tayree-aa khaanee tayree-aa banee — all the sources of life are Yours, and all speech is Yours. The khaanee are the four old groups of how creatures are born: from eggs, from a mother, from moisture, and from seeds. It is a poet's way of saying every living thing, with no exceptions. Banee means every word ever spoken. This is Ik Onkar, the One in all, painted as wide as it goes.
Then comes a puzzle. The One is in everything. Yet bin naavai sabh bharam bhulaanee — without the Name, everyone is lost in bharam, confusion. How can we be surrounded by the One and still be lost? Because being near something is not the same as noticing it. A fish swims in water its whole life and may never notice the water. We live inside the One and still walk around confused, because we have not yet seen what we are swimming in.
That is why the Naam, the Name, matters, and why a Guru, a teacher, is needed. The Name is not facts about a faraway God. It is noticing the One who is already everywhere. We cannot make that happen alone. The Guru points it out, the way a friend says, "Look — the water." The rest of the shabad is about clearing away whatever blocks that seeing.
What's something that's been around you your whole life that you've never really stopped to notice?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI