Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Every color and every shape in the world is Yours — all of them are You at play. The creatures wearing those forms die and are born, die and are born, spinning around and around. But You alone never change: unmovable, beyond reach, without limit. And it's through the Guru's teaching that we finally come to understand this.
This verse says every shape and color we see is the One in costume, and the One inside never changes.
Varan roop varteh sabh tayray — all the colors and forms are Yours, and You move through them. Every shade of skin, every kind of body, every creature — none of it is apart from the One. This is Ik Onkar, the One in all: one reality wearing countless costumes. The world is not a crowd of separate things. It is One, in a million masks.
Then comes the big difference. The forms come and go. Mar mar jameh — creatures die and are born, again and again, going round and round. But the One is nihchal, unchanging, never moving. Everything we can see is passing. The One shining through it all stays. Think of a school play. The actors change costumes and leave the stage. But the lights that shine on every scene stay on the whole time. If we pin our heart on the forms — this shape, that color, this passing thing — we tie ourselves to what keeps ending. If we pin it on the One underneath, we find what never ends.
The One is also agam apaaraa — beyond reach and without limit. Our eyes and hands can only take hold of forms. So how can we know a One with no color and no shape to point at? The last line answers: gurmatee boojh bujhaavani-aa — through gurmat, the Guru's teaching, understanding is given. The mind on its own keeps reaching for forms. The Guru turns our gaze to the One behind them. Even that understanding is not grabbed. It is handed to us, as a gift of grace. We do not figure out the One without limit. We are shown.
What in your life have you been treating as permanent that's actually a "costume" — always changing — and what underneath it might be the lasting thing?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI