Guru Nanak's Japji Sahib, the composition that opens the Guru Granth Sahib and is recited by observant Sikhs every morning, describes spiritual progress as a passage through five khands, stages or realms, each building on the last. Dharam Khand, the realm of righteous duty, establishes moral order and the consequences of action. Gyan Khand, the realm of knowledge, opens the seeker's understanding to the vastness of creation, its countless worlds, beings and forms, past ordinary comprehension. Saram Khand, the realm of spiritual effort, is where beauty and intuitive wisdom are refined and consciousness itself is reshaped by sustained striving. Karam Khand, the realm of grace, is the domain of those whose strength comes no longer from their own effort but from divine grace acting through them, populated by the mighty warriors and heroes of spiritual accomplishment.
Sach Khand, the realm of Truth, is the fifth and final stage, and Guru Nanak describes it in terms that stop short of description: it is the dwelling of the Formless One, Nirankar, where the seeker's individual will is fully aligned with the divine will, and where countless worlds and forms of existence are said to lie beyond what language can convey. The Japji Sahib does not present Sach Khand as a place to be reached after death so much as a state to be realized, through the discipline of naam simran and a life ordered by truth, while still embodied.