Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Sometimes a scholar, giving learned lectures; sometimes a silent one, deep in stillness.
Sometimes bathing at the sacred rivers; sometimes a master or a seeker, handing out wisdom.
Sometimes a worm, an elephant, a moth - wandering through birth after birth, costume after costume, like actors on a stage.
As it pleases the One, we dance. What pleases Him happens. Nanak says: there is no other - none at all.
The One is the actor inside every costume, and never gets lost.
The list now crosses from people to animals. Sometimes a scholar giving talks. Sometimes silent in deep stillness. Sometimes bathing at holy rivers. Sometimes a Siddh, a yogi master, sharing wisdom. Then: kabhoo keet hasat patang ho-ay jee-aa — sometimes a worm, an elephant or a moth.
Now the stage picture is plain: naanaa roop ji-o savaagee dikhaavai — like an actor, appearing in many costumes.
This is Gurbani's answer to the fear of being born again and again. The wandering through many lives is real. But it is a wardrobe, not who you are. The actor is never the costume. Think of a school play where you are a tree one year and a king the next. You are still you. And the Director never loses track of a single player. Another shabad in Raag Gauree uses this same picture of an actor in disguise.
ji-o parabh bhaavai tivai nachaavai — as it pleases the One, they dance. That holds two truths. No dancer picks the dance. And yet it is a dance, not a punishment.
The pauri ends where the section began: naanak doojaa avar na ko-ay — there is no other at all. One Dancer, in every costume ever worn.
If you have been many different selves already in this one life, who is the one that stayed through all of them?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI