Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
There is one awareness among all created beings. None have been created without this awareness.
As is their awareness, so is their way — their path, their behavior, the life they live.
According to what they accumulate through action, they come and go. But the awareness is the same. The source is one.
This shabad opens with a foundational non-dual claim: ik chetna sabh jag mahe — one consciousness in all the world. Not each being has its own separate consciousness, isolated behind its own eyes. One awareness, distributed.
This connects to Advaita Vedanta's Brahman and to contemporary theories of consciousness that question whether individual minds are truly separate. Guru Nanak's framing is practical: because the awareness is one, all beings are kin.
If you truly believed there was the same awareness in every living thing — including people who seem very different from you — what would change about how you treated them?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI