Take the Name, and Take Hold of What Holds the Planets
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
The Name holds up every creature; the Name holds up the earth and the circling worlds.
The Name holds up the oldest wisdom, and every hearing of wisdom since. The Name holds up the skies above and the deeps below; the Name holds up every body walking around.
The Name holds up all the worlds and realms there are. Keep company with it - let it in through your ears - and you are carried.
Those the One mercifully ties to His Name rise into the fourth state - free.
This one says the Name holds up everything, from the stars to the body you walk around in.
This is the great pillar verse about the Naam, the Name. It is the center of this ashtapadee and a load-bearing teaching of the whole Sikh path. Naam kay Dhaaray — held up by the Name. Held up are all creatures, the earth, whole galaxies, the old scriptures, the skies and the deep places, all bodies, all worlds.
To see it fully, hear Naam as more than a label stuck onto God. It is the living presence those sounds point to. That presence holds up whatever it fills.
Heard that way, the verse is exact. What holds up the planets and what you hold in your heart is the same power. Think of electricity. The same current runs a whole city and lights the small lamp by your bed. To take the Name is to grab the beam the whole universe hangs from.
The listening line keeps this simple and close. Naam kai sang uDhray sun sarvan — keep company with the Name, hear it with your ears, and you are carried across. Suniai, deep listening, again.
The end names where this leads. Cha-uthay pad, the fourth state. It is the state beyond the three moods of nature, which the first verse of this song already stepped past. The Name leads right to where the One lives.
When you say a name you love, something real happens in you. What might be happening when the Name is of the One holding everything?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI