Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
The One who made each of us knows exactly how we work — better than we know ourselves. Only when He moves within a person do they truly recognize the **hukam**, the way everything actually runs. Whatever He plants inside someone is what shows up in their life; the inside is what becomes the outside.
This verse says the One who made us knows us from the inside, and even our understanding is His gift.
It zooms all the way out to the biggest view. And it quietly softens the sharp line between gurmukh and manmukh. Jin keetay so-ee bidh jaanai means "the One who made them knows their condition." Bidh means how you work inside. This isn't a faraway judge keeping score. It is the Maker who understands you from within, the way a baker knows every ingredient in the bread she made. You are fully known, gently, without having to explain yourself.
Then comes a line about how we come to understand anything at all. Aap karay taa hukam pachhaanai means "when He Himself acts, then they recognize the Hukam." Hukam is the One's will, the way everything really runs. This is deep humility. Even your ability to understand the truth isn't something you make by being clever. The One wakes it up in you. The gurmukh doesn't earn insight. The One gives the eyes to see. That is gurprasaad, grace, reaching right down to the root of our awareness.
The last line holds the kindness of the whole song. Jayhaa andar paa-ay tayhaa vartai means "whatever He places within, that is what plays out." The outside life is the flower of a seed inside, and the seed itself is given. This links back to the flower and its given fragrance in the last garden verse.
So the gossiping manmukh and the peaceful gurmukh aren't two kinds of people who deserve praise or scorn. They are two garden beds with different seeds, planted by the one Gardener, within His Hukam. This doesn't excuse harm. It clears away judging. If even your understanding is a gift, you have nothing to be proud of when you see. And you have no reason to look down on someone who doesn't see yet. There is only the One, placing what He places, and our prayer that He place the Name in us.
If everyone is acting from "whatever was placed within them," how might that change the way you judge someone who's behaving badly?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI