Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
One single Light shines as the light in every body — the same flame in all of us. The Perfect True Teacher reveals this through the **shabad**. The One Himself even built the *sense of difference* into our hearts — and the One Himself wove this whole creation together.
This whole song is the boldest statement of oneness in the entire section — a hymn where almost every line says aape, "He Himself," insisting that the One is everything. The opening line sets it: eka jot, jot hai sareera — one single Light is the light shining in all bodies. We've met this jot before (Shabad 67, Shabad 73): the formless One is a Light, and that same Light burns in every being. Your awareness and your brother's and the stranger's and even the person you dislike — each a small light of that one Light (joti jot). There is, quite literally, no second light anywhere.
But then comes the line that makes this song unique and a little mind-bending: aape farak keeton ghat antar — He Himself made the sense of difference within our hearts. Here's the deep puzzle. If there's only one Light, why does the world look like a million separate things? Why do I feel separate from you, from the world, from the One? The answer this stanza gives is startling: even that — the very feeling of farak (difference, separation) — was placed there by the One Himself. The sense of being separate isn't a mistake that happened against the One's will; it's part of the One's own play, aape banat banaavnia — He Himself fashioned this whole arrangement. The One made a single Light, and then, within that oneness, created the experience of manyness — like a single actor playing every role in a drama, genuinely feeling separate in each part.
Why would the One do this? The song doesn't fully explain (it's a mystery, the ajab kamm of Shabad 64), but it removes a great anxiety: the separation you feel isn't a sign that something went wrong, or that you fell out of the One's favor. It's woven into the design. And crucially — the One who built the sense of difference can also dissolve it: sabad dikhaae satgur poora — the Perfect Guru, through the shabad, reveals the one Light beneath the difference. So the whole game has a way out built into it. The One made you feel separate; the Guru shows you you never were. The sense of difference is real as an experience, but it's not the final truth — the final truth is the one Light, and the Guru is the one who pulls back the curtain and shows it to you.
If the same one Light shines in you and in everyone else — even the people you find hardest — what would it mean to really live as though that were true?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI