Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Even the gods and goddesses people pray to grew up out of Maya. The great holy rulebooks were written for that whole world of forms and powers.
Underneath it all, desire and anger run loose through everything.
And so people keep coming and going, coming and going, hurting the whole way round.
This one says the One is bigger than everything that has a shape, even the gods and goddesses people pray to. It needs to be read gently.
Dayvee dayvaa mool hai maa-i-aa — the root of the gods and goddesses is Maya, the world of shapes and forms. Guru Amar Das is saying that every god and goddess with a form grew up inside that world. Beyond every form stands Ik Onkar, "there is One," the One without any shape at all.
This isn't looking down on other paths or on the people who walk them. It is about what comes first. Simrit saasat jinn upaa-i-aa — for that world, the Simritees and Shaastras, old holy rulebooks, were written. Even these honored books belong to the world of forms. The Guru isn't saying they are bad. He is pointing past all of it to the One, whom no single form can hold. Think of a finger pointing at the moon. The finger is useful. But the moon is what you want to see. Don't stop at the shape; keep going to the One beyond shapes.
Then the verse names what happens if we stay only on the surface: kaam kroDh pasri-aa sansaaray — kaam, strong grabbing desire, and kroDh, anger, have spread through the world. Where the surface rules, these rule too, and they bend how we see everything. And so: aa-ay jaa-ay dukh paavani-aa — coming and going, people hurt. The round keeps turning, as long as someone stays in the net and doesn't wake up beyond it.
Is there something you treat as the highest thing, that might actually be one more beautiful part of the 'shimmering surface'?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI