Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
I would give everything I am for the people who hold the **Name** of the One who has no shape at all.
You can't draw it or carve it or fence it in — and yet it shows up, glowing, inside every single heart. The ones who turn toward the teaching come to know the very thing no one can ever fully know.
This is the Rahao, the "pause" line, the center of the shabad. It names the One who has no shape, yet can be seen in every heart.
Ha-o vaaree jee-o vaaree nirankaaree naam Dhi-aavani-aa — I give myself to those who keep in mind the Name of the Nirankaaree, the Formless One. Tis roop na raykh-i-aa — He has no form, no outline. There is nothing to picture, nothing to carve into a statue, nothing the imagination can pin down. Sikh teaching holds this firmly: the One can't be squeezed into any shape, because every shape is too small.
Then comes the lovely surprise the pause line turns on: ghat ghat daykhi-aa — He is seen in each and every heart. The One who can't be pictured is still seen. Not with the eyes, but inside, deep in every living heart, with no one left out. The Formless has no face, and yet looks out from every face. Think of the wind. You can't see it, but you see every leaf it moves.
The last line gives the soul's highest gift in one phrase: gurmukh alakh lakhaavani-aa — the gurmukh, the one who faces the light, comes to know the alakh, the one who can't be known. It doesn't say the gurmukh solves the One or figures Him out. The One stays beyond knowing. What changes is that the gurmukh knows Him anyway. It's the way you know someone you love is in the room in the dark, not by studying but by closeness. You can be sure of the One without ever holding all of Him.
Is there someone or something you know deeply without being able to fully explain or describe it?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI