Ang-1001 — Chapter 31
Practicing egotism and possessiveness, you have come into the world.
Hope and desire bind you and lead you on.
Indulging in egotism and self-conceit, what will you be able to carry with you, except the load of ashes from poison and corruption? ||15||
Worship the Lord in devotion, O humble Siblings of Destiny.
Speak the Unspoken Speech, and the mind will merge back into the Mind.
Restrain your restless mind within its own home, and the Lord, the Destroyer, shall destroy your pain. ||16||
I seek the support of the Perfect Guru, the Lord.
The Gurmukh loves the Lord; the Gurmukh realizes the Lord.
O Nanak, through the Lord's Name, the intellect is exalted; granting His forgiveness, the Lord carries him across to the other side. ||17||4||10||
Maaroo, First Mehl:
O Divine Guru, I have entered Your Sanctuary.
You are the Almighty Lord, the Merciful Lord.
No one knows Your wondrous plays; You are the perfect Architect of Destiny. ||1||
From the very beginning of time, and throughout the ages, You cherish and sustain Your beings.
You are in each and every heart, O Merciful Lord of incomparable beauty.
As You will, You cause all to walk; everyone acts according to Your Command. ||2||
Deep within the nucleus of all, is the Light of the Life of the World.
The Lord enjoys the hearts of all, and drinks in their essence.
He Himself gives, and He himself takes; He is the generous father of the beings of the three worlds. ||3||
Creating the world, He has set His play into motion.
He placed the soul in the body of air, water and fire.
The body-village has nine gates; the Tenth Gate remains hidden. ||4||
There are four horrible rivers of fire.
How rare is that Gurmukh who understands this, and through the Word of the Shabad, remains unattached.
The faithless cynics are drowned and burnt through their evil-mindedness. The Guru saves those who are imbued with the Love of the Lord. ||5||
Water, fire, air, earth and ether
in that house of the five elements, they dwell.
Those who remain imbued with the Word of the True Guru's Shabad, renounce Maya, egotism and doubt. ||6||
This mind is drenched with the Shabad, and satisfied.
Without the Name, what support can anyone have?
The temple of the body is being plundered by the thieves within, but this faithless cynic does not even recognize these demons. ||7||
They are argumentative demons, terrifying goblins.
These demons stir up conflict and strife.
Without awareness of the Shabad, one comes and goes in reincarnation; he loses his honor in this coming and going. ||8||
The body of the false person is just a pile of barren dirt.
Without the Name, what honor can you have?
Bound and gagged throughout the four ages, there is no liberation; the Messenger of Death keeps such a person under his gaze. ||9||
At Death's door, he is tied up and punished;
such a sinner does not obtain salvation.
He cries out in pain, like the fish pierced by the hook. ||10||
The faithless cynic is caught in the noose all alone.
The miserable spiritually blind person is caught in the power of Death.
Without the Lord's Name, liberation is not known. He shall waste away, today or tomorrow. ||11||
Other than the True Guru, no one is your friend.
Here and hereafter, God is the Savior.
He grants His Grace, and bestows the Lord's Name. He merges with Him, like water with water. ||12||
✦ 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.”
Humility & Surrender
Bhagavad Gita 18:66
“Abandon all varieties of dharma and simply surrender unto Me. I shall deliver you from all sinful reactions; do not fear.”
Matthew 5:5
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”
Tao Te Ching 22
“If you want to become whole, let yourself be partial. If you want to become full, let yourself be empty.”
Quran 2:45
“Seek help through patience and prayer. It is indeed exacting, but not for those who are humble.”
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.”