Ang-1 — Chapter 4

Countless devotees contemplate the Wisdom and Virtues of the Lord.

Countless the holy, countless the givers.

Countless heroic spiritual warriors, who bear the brunt of the attack in battle (who with their mouths eat steel).

Countless silent sages, vibrating the String of His Love.

How can Your Creative Potency be described?

I cannot even once be a sacrifice to You.

Whatever pleases You is the only good done,

You, Eternal and Formless One. ||17||

Countless fools, blinded by ignorance.

Countless thieves and embezzlers.

Countless impose their will by force.

Countless cut-throats and ruthless killers.

Countless sinners who keep on sinning.

Countless liars, wandering lost in their lies.

Countless wretches, eating filth as their ration.

Countless slanderers, carrying the weight of their stupid mistakes on their heads.

Nanak describes the state of the lowly.

I cannot even once be a sacrifice to You.

Whatever pleases You is the only good done,

You, Eternal and Formless One. ||18||

Countless names, countless places.

Inaccessible, unapproachable, countless celestial realms.

Even to call them countless is to carry the weight on your head.

From the Word, comes the Naam; from the Word, comes Your Praise.

From the Word, comes spiritual wisdom, singing the Songs of Your Glory.

From the Word, come the written and spoken words and hymns.

From the Word, comes destiny, written on one's forehead.

But the One who wrote these Words of Destiny-no words are written on His Forehead.

As He ordains, so do we receive.

The created universe is the manifestation of Your Name.

Without Your Name, there is no place at all.

How can I describe Your Creative Power?

I cannot even once be a sacrifice to You.

Whatever pleases You is the only good done,

You, Eternal and Formless One. ||19||

When the hands and the feet and the body are dirty,

water can wash away the dirt.

When the clothes are soiled and stained by urine,

soap can wash them clean.

But when the intellect is stained and polluted by sin,

it can only be cleansed by the Love of the Name.

Virtue and vice do not come by mere words;

actions repeated, over and over again, are engraved on the soul.

You shall harvest what you plant.

O Nanak, by the Hukam of God's Command, we come and go in reincarnation. ||20||

Pilgrimages, austere discipline, compassion and charity

these, by themselves, bring only an iota of merit.

Listening and believing with love and humility in your mind,

cleanse yourself with the Name, at the sacred shrine deep within.

All virtues are Yours, Lord, I have none at all.

Without virtue, there is no devotional worship.

I bow to the Lord of the World, to His Word, to Brahma the Creator.

He is Beautiful, True and Eternally Joyful.

What was that time, and what was that moment? What was that day, and what was that date?

What was that season, and what was that month, when the Universe was created?

The Pandits, the religious scholars, cannot find that time, even if it is written in the Puraanas.

That time is not known to the Qazis, who study the Koran.

The day and the date are not known to the Yogis, nor is the month or the season.

The Creator who created this creation-only He Himself knows.

How can we speak of Him? How can we praise Him? How can we describe Him? How can we know Him?