Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
O Nanak — the devoted servant of God is absorbed in the Lord.
Only the divine knows the mystery of the devoted servant. No one else knows.
The devotee's state is beyond ordinary understanding — only the divine who created it knows what it is.
The closing pauri makes an important acknowledgment: the devotee's state (bhaa-o — the mystery of the devotee) is known only to God. It is not explainable, not comprehensible to those who have not experienced it. The devotee's being absorbed (samaai-aa) in the Lord is the end-state — merger, not relationship.
This is an honest limit on the teaching: what Guru Arjan has been describing (above good and bad, above liberation and bondage, seeing the divine everywhere) is a state that cannot be fully communicated. It can only be pointed at. Only the one who lives it — and the divine — know what it actually is.
Is there something you know from experience that you find impossible to fully explain to someone who hasn't had the same experience? What is it? What makes it unexplainable?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI