Guru Nanak's Japji Sahib, the opening composition of the Guru Granth Sahib and the hymn recited daily by observant Sikhs, describes the soul's ascent toward liberation as a progression through five realms or stages (khand), and this sequence is the fullest scriptural map of what leads to the mukti described in the main entry.
Dharam Khand, the realm of righteous action, is the starting condition of ordinary embodied existence, in which a person becomes aware of moral duty, of the created order, and of accountability for action. Gian Khand, the realm of knowledge, follows as understanding expands to encompass the vastness of creation and the multiplicity of worlds, beings and forms, dissolving the narrowness of a self-centered view of existence. Saram Khand, the realm of effort, is the stage where beauty and inner refinement are shaped, and the intellect and consciousness are honed toward the divine, often glossed by commentators as a smithy in which a finer awareness is forged.
Karam Khand, the realm of grace, is the stage at which divine power operates directly, populated in the hymn's imagery by warriors and heroes of spiritual strength; the name signals that entry beyond this point depends on grace rather than on effort alone. Sach Khand, the realm of truth, is the final stage, the abode of the formless divine, where, in the hymn's own words, the formless one dwells amid the created forms and watches over them with approval; commentators read this as the state of union described in the main entry, though the hymn offers imagery rather than a systematic metaphysical description, consistent with the tradition's general reluctance to press such language into a fixed doctrinal claim.