Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Listen, O religious scholar: the One Lord alone is full of wonder. No one can describe Him.
He delights the angels, the heavenly singers, and the heavenly musicians. He has strung all three worlds on His one Thread.
Kabir tells a learned scholar that the One is too full of wonder for anyone to describe.
Achraj ayk sunhu ray pandee-aa means listen, O pandit, the One is a wonder. A pandit is a religious scholar, someone who has spent a whole life studying holy books. Kabir speaks to him because this hymn is about a kind of knowing that study alone cannot reach. Ab kichh kahan na jaa-ee means nothing can be said to describe Him. That is not because our words are weak. It is simply what the One is like: bigger than any label.
Sur nar gan gandharab jin mohay means He delights the angels, the heavenly singers, and the heavenly musicians. Even beings who live for music cannot stop being drawn to Him.
Tribhavan maykhulee laa-ee means He has strung the three worlds on His thread. In old Indian teaching, the three worlds are earth, the heavens, and the world below. He does not hold them in His hands. He strings them, the way you string beads on a necklace. Everything that exists hangs on His one thread, with no strain at all.
Think of a friendship bracelet. Every bead stays in place because of the one string running through them all.
This first verse sets up the rest. If the One is like this, how do we come close? Not by study alone. By something more direct, felt with the whole self.
Is there anything in your life — a piece of music, a view, a moment — that you find genuinely wondrous, beyond what you can explain?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI