Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Everyone hears about how vast and great the oneness is, and everyone nods: yes, yes, it's great. But just how great? Only those who have actually seen it — really felt it, not just heard about it — know.
And the ones who try to describe it? They get so absorbed in it that they can't even finish the description. They disappear into what they're talking about.
This shabad makes a crucial distinction: knowing about the oneness and knowing it directly are not the same thing. You can hear thousands of descriptions and still be no closer to the experience. The paradox is that genuine descriptions of the oneness tend to undo the describer — they become so immersed in what they're pointing at that the pointing stops and the merging begins.
This is why Guru Nanak ends here by saying those who describe You remain absorbed in You. The act of genuine praise is not performance. It is the self dissolving into what it is praising. The description and the described become one.
Has there ever been something in your life — a piece of music, a view, a moment — where you stopped being the observer and just became part of what you were experiencing? What happened to you in that moment?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI