Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Serving the Guru, the Lord is obtained — when He bestows His Glance of Grace.
They are transformed from humans into angels — meditating on the Naam.
They conquer egotism and merge with the Lord. They are saved through the Guru's Shabad.
Nanak says: they merge imperceptibly into the Lord, who has bestowed His favor upon them.
Transformation from human to angel
Narnāru, devnāru kī'ā, Har nāmu dhiā'i — "they are transformed from humans into angels, meditating on the Naam, the Name of the Lord." The transformation is not supernatural in the literal sense — these are not wings-and-halo beings. The transformation is moral and spiritual: the qualities associated with divine beings (purity, radiance, freedom from ego, natural compassion) develop through meditation on the Name.
The human is the raw material. The Naam is the transforming agent. The angel is what emerges. This is the tradition's claim about what genuine practice produces: not the same person with better habits, but a genuinely different kind of being.
"Merge imperceptibly"
Nānak, āpahi āp milā'ie, nadar kari — "Nanak, they merge imperceptibly into the Lord, who has bestowed His Favor upon them." The final state is imperceptible merging — sahaj. No dramatic event, no visible seam. The soul that has been meditating on the Name for long enough gradually becomes indistinguishable from the Name. The distinctness dissolves, but nothing is lost. The drop is still the drop and also the ocean.
"Conquer egotism and merge with the Lord"
Haumai jīti, Har sang milhi'ā, Gur shabad udhrā'ie — "they conquer their egotism and merge with the Lord; they are saved through the Word of the Guru's Shabad." The conquest of ego and the merging with the Lord are simultaneous: they are the same event described from two directions.
*What would it mean to be genuinely transformed by a practice — not just better at it, but actually different inside? Do you have any experience of that kind of transformation?*
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI