Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
That one One fills everything and everyone, everywhere.
But only a few, turned toward the teaching, truly understand this. Nanak says: the souls tuned to the Name are the beautiful ones — and the One, in its grace, draws them home into itself.
This last verse says the One is in everyone and everything; the only gap was ever in our seeing.
It comes back to what an earlier verse said, the One filling all, and names who comes to see it. Sabh meh vartai ayko so-ee means "that One alone is at work in all." This is Ik Onkar, "there is One," the bedrock. There is one One, present in everything and everyone, with no one left out.
That was true the whole time, through every verse. It was true even of the reader who missed, the restless mind, and the bride dressed for an absent husband. The One was in them too. The difference was never whether the One was there. It was whether the soul could see it.
Gurmukh virlaa boojhai ko-ee means "only a rare one, facing the Guru, understands this." A gurmukh is someone turned toward the Guru. The One is everywhere, but only a few actually notice the Oneness that was always there. That is the gap this whole shabad has been about. Not a gap between the soul and a faraway God. A gap between a heart that sees the One who is always present, and a heart that, lost in two-ness, looks right past it. Like hunting all over the house for the glasses sitting on top of your head.
The closing line names the beauty of those who see, and the grace that finishes the story. Naanak naam ratay jan soheh means "Nanak says, those tuned to the Name are beautiful." Ratay means dyed, soaked, tuned in, like a guitar string tuned to the right note. That is the inner beauty that runs through this raag: a life dyed in love and turned toward the One.
And the last word is joining, by grace. Kar kirpaa aap milaavani-aa means "showing kindness, the One joins them to Himself." The shabad began with the worthwhile life, the one unhooked at home. It ends with that same soul gathered into the One. Not by its own effort; the second verse said effort alone can't do it. By grace, like a drop returning to the ocean it was always part of. From the worthwhile life to the final joining, it is one story: a soul that read all the way to the heart, let the Word cut its ropes, and was drawn home by the grace of the One it finally learned to see.
If the One is 'pervading in all' already, the question isn't where to find it but whether you can see it — so what helps you actually see?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI