Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
My One is playful — full of wonder and delight, like a child completely lost in a game.
It made Krishna, and it is also the very milkmaids who go searching for Krishna — it plays every part in the story at once. It delights in every heart; it is both the one who charms and the one who is charmed. It knows everything and cannot be fooled — the true teacher, the real Yogi.
This shabad opens with a word not often used for the divine: playful. Playful is my Lord of the Universe; playful is my Beloved. The One is not pictured here as a stern judge or a distant king but as wondrous and playful — delighting, like a child at play, in the endless game of creation. And then Guru Ram Das makes a startling, beautiful theological move using the most famous love-story of Indian devotion: the tale of Krishna and the milkmaids (the gopis) who adore and seek him.
The Lord Himself created Krishna... the Lord Himself is the milkmaids who seek Him. Read that carefully: the One is both Krishna, the beloved being sought, and the milkmaids who do the seeking. It plays both parts in the great drama of love — the lover and the beloved, the seeker and the sought. He Himself enjoys every heart... He Himself is the Ravisher and the Enjoyer. This can be read as profound non-dual devotion: in the play of love between soul and God, there are not finally two parties but One, delighting in itself from every angle, loving itself through every heart. On that reading, the longing you feel for the One is the One longing; the Beloved you seek is the One sought. And this playful, all-encompassing One is All-knowing — He cannot be fooled — the True Guru, the Yogi, the genuine union behind every story of love and seeking.
What changes if the longing you feel for something greater is, at the deepest level, that greatness reaching back toward you?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI