I'm no gyanan, so I'm sure that my interpretation will be flawed, and many people wiser than me will probably have thoughts on this that are very different from my own. So take this as simply my own imperfect understanding.
To me, I think one of the fundamentals of Sikh philosophy is the distinction between Sat (truth) and Maya (illusion). Maya is the way we understand the world from our own limited perspectives; we are limited to the Man (mind), and to the trappings of our own perceptions and cognitions. Sat, on the other hand, is the nature of reality as it truly is, independent of our own perspectives. By the very nature of Maya, we cannot consciously understand Sat; we are limited to the faculties of language and thought, constructs of the self which operate from the self's flawed and limited perspective. Sat cannot be accessed through language and thought; this is why in Japji Sahib, Nanak says "sochai soch na hovaee je socee lakh vaar" (One thinks, but thought is not obtained, even by thinking a hundred thousand times). This is also why he criticizes the Qazis and Pandits, who for all their knowledge and studies, cannot speak on the nature of Sat.
This, I think, is why we have the recurrent symbol of music in Sikhi, and why Gurbani is revealed not in prose but in poetry and song. We do not consciously understand music; it is something that we have intuitive knowledge of. We can understand music, but we do it at a level which goes beyond conscious thought and language and strikes instead at our abstract sense of aesthetics and beauty. This is why the Naad (melody) is such an important metaphor for understanding Sat throughout the Granth; it symbolizes the unconscious, intuitive understanding of Sat.
So Sat, to me, is the nature of reality which transcends thought and language and perception, that cannot be truly described, only
experienced, as the Gurus did; it is reality free from Maya, and free of the mental constructs that the egoistic self has created to make sense of the world, including the very idea of the "self" itself. And this Sat, this Truth, is the very essence of the Divine; only Waheguru truly perceives Truth, because only Waheguru is free from Maya, They are the one and only self that exists, the very essence of this Truth, this Sat. Maybe Waheguru is Sat made self-existent, the one Truth which knows itself. I don't know the answer, and I doubt I ever will!
I've rambled too long about this
Didn't mean to let it get this long!
