Who has died, and who kills? Who comes and who goes?
ਕਉਣੁ ਰਹਸੀ ਨਾਨਕਾ ਕਿਸ ਕੀ ਸੁਰਤਿ ਸਮਾਇ ॥੧॥
ka-un rahsee naankaa kis kee surat samaa-ay. ||1||
Who is enraptured, O Nanak, and whose consciousness merges in the Lord? ||1||
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
In plain words
Listen to and speak the Name of the One who fills the sky, the earth, and everything below.
The Hukam, the way things are, cannot be rubbed out; what is written unfolds and travels with you.
Who dies, and who does the harming? Who comes, who goes? And Nanak says: who, enraptured, melts back into the One?
In the light of the One, even coming and going lose their sting.
The deeper layer
A shalok of the First Mehl. The closing questions ('Who has died, and who kills? Who comes and who goes?') dissolve the hard lines between living and dying into the single reality of the One. In oneness, the categories that frighten us lose their sharp edges. The Hukam (the flow of existence) cannot be erased.
A Question to Sit With
What questions get quieter when you remember everything is connected?
