Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
The One can't be fully grasped, has no edges, can't be reached by climbing and can't be caught by the senses. Time doesn't touch it, and it isn't ruled by the give-and-take of cause and effect.
It belongs to no caste and no group. It was never born, it lights itself, and it is free of fear and free of grasping desire.
Guru Nanak says the One has no caste, so no one's birth makes them better than anyone else.
He starts with a list of what the One is beyond. People who love the One, in many traditions, talk this way when something is too big to describe. Alakh: no mark can pin the One down. Apaar: without limits. Agamm: can't be reached by climbing. Agochar: beyond what eyes and ears can catch. Naa tis kaal na karmaa: time and karma, the chain of cause and effect, don't rule the One.
Then comes the line that matters most. Jaat ajaat: the One's caste is no caste at all. Jaat means caste, the old system of sorting people into higher and lower groups by the family they were born into. Guru Nanak says the deepest reality has no such label. So being born into one family can never make a person higher than another.
Think of a school where everyone gets the same lunch and the same seat, whatever their parents do. That is how the One sees us.
Ajonee sambhau: never born, lit by Its own light. The One is free of bhaa-o, grasping desire, and bharmaa, doubt. These words echo the Mool Mantar, the opening lines of the Guru Granth Sahib.
If the deepest reality has no caste or rank, what does that say about how we should treat each other?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI