Ang-1001 — Chapter 12
Serving the Guru, eternal peace is obtained, by those whom the Lord inspires to obey the Hukam of His Command. ||7||
Gold and silver, and all metals, mix with dust in the end
Without the Name, nothing goes along with you; the True Guru has imparted this understanding.
O Nanak, those who are attuned to the Naam are immaculate and pure; they remain merged in the Truth. ||8||5||
Maaroo, First Mehl:
The Order is issued, and he cannot remain; the permit to stay has been torn up.
This mind is tied to its faults; it suffers terrible pain in its body.
The Perfect Guru forgives all the mistakes of the beggar at His Door. ||1||
How can he stay here? He must get up and depart. Contemplate the Word of the Shabad, and understand this.
He alone is united, whom You, O Lord, unite. Such is the Primal Command of the Infinite Lord. ||1||Pause||
As You keep me, I remain; whatever You give me, I eat.
As You lead me, I follow, with the Ambrosial Name in my mouth.
All glorious greatness rests in the hands of my Lord and Master; my mind yearns to unite with You. ||2||
Why should anyone praise any other created being? That Lord acts and sees.
The One who created me, abides within my mind; there is no other at all.
So praise that True Lord, and you shall be blessed with true honor. ||3||
The Pandit, the religious scholar, reads, but does not reach the Lord; he is totally entangled in worldly affairs.
He keeps the company of both virtue and vice, tormented by hunger and the Messenger of Death.
One who is protected by the Perfect Lord, forgets separation and fear. ||4||
They alone are perfect, O Siblings of Destiny, whose honor is certified.
Perfect is the intellect of the Perfect Lord. True is His glorious greatness.
His gifts never run short, although those who receive may grow weary of receiving. ||5||
Searching the salty sea, one finds the pearl.
It looks beautiful for a few days, but in the end, it is eaten away by dust.
If one serves the Guru, the ocean of Truth, the gifts one receives never run short. ||6||
They alone are pure, who are pleasing to my God; all others are soiled with filth.
The filthy become pure, when they meet with the Guru, the Philosopher's Stone.
Who can estimate the value of the color of the true jewel? ||7||
Wearing religious robes, the Lord is not obtained, nor is He obtained by giving donations at sacred shrines of pilgrimage.
Go and ask the readers of the Vedas; without faith, the world is cheated.
O Nanak, he alone values the jewel, who is blessed with the spiritual wisdom of the Perfect Guru. ||8||6||
Maaroo, Fifth Mehl:
The self-willed manmukh, in a fit of passion, abandons his home, and is ruined; then, he spies on the homes of others.
He neglects his household duties, and does not meet with the True Guru; he is caught in the whirlpool of evil-mindedness.
Wandering in foreign lands and reading scriptures, he grows weary, and his thirsty desires only increase.
His perishable body does not remember the Word of the Shabad; like a beast, he fills his belly. ||1||
O Baba, this is the way of life of the Sannyaasi, the renunciate.
Through the Word of the Guru's Shabad, he is to enshrine love for the One Lord. Imbued with Your Name, Lord, he remains satisfied and fulfilled. ||1||Pause||
He dyes his robes with saffron dye, and wearing these robes, he goes out begging.
Tearing his robes, he makes a patched coat, and puts the money in his wallet.
From house to house he goes begging, and tries to teach the world; but his mind is blind, and so he loses his honor.
He is deluded by doubt, and does not remember the Word of the Shabad. He loses his life in the gamble. ||2||
✦ Connected Across Traditions
The Golden Rule
Matthew 7:12
“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
Hadith (An-Nawawi 13)
“None of you truly believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.”
Leviticus 19:18
“Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Mahabharata 5.1517
“One should never do to another what one regards as injurious to oneself.”
Impermanence & Letting Go
Dhammapada 20:277
“All conditioned things are impermanent. When one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering.”
Tao Te Ching 76
“A man is born gentle and weak. At his death he is hard and stiff. The soft and yielding is the disciple of life.”
Ecclesiastes 3:1-2
“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.”
Bhagavad Gita 2:22
“As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, the soul similarly accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones.”
The Path to Wisdom
Proverbs 4:7
“Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding.”
Dhammapada 20:282
“Wisdom springs from meditation; without meditation wisdom wanes.”
Analects 2:11
“If you study the past and use it to understand the present, you are worthy of being a teacher.”
Tao Te Ching 33
“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.”
Good vs Evil / Light vs Darkness
Yasna 30:3
“Now the two primal Spirits, who reveal themselves as Twins, are the Better and the Bad, in thought and word and action.”
John 1:5
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
Dhammapada 1:1-2
“Mind is the forerunner of all actions. If one speaks or acts with a pure mind, happiness follows like a shadow.”
Genesis 1:3
“And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.”