Ang-301 — Chapter 22
To obtain the state of life of Nirvaanaa, meditate in remembrance on the One Lord.
There is no other place; how else can we be comforted?
I have seen the whole world - without the Lord's Name, there is no peace at all.
Body and wealth shall return to dust - hardly anyone realizes this.
Pleasure, beauty and delicious tastes are useless; what are you doing, O mortal?
One whom the Lord Himself misleads, does not understand His awesome power.
Those who are imbued with the Love of the Lord attain Nirvaanaa, singing the Praises of the True One.
Nanak: those who are pleasing to Your Will, O Lord, seek Sanctuary at Your Door. ||2||
Pauree:
Those who are attached to the hem of the Lord's robe, do not suffer birth and death.
Those who remain awake to the Kirtan of the Lord's Praises - their lives are approved.
Those who attain the Saadh Sangat, the Company of the Holy, are very fortunate.
But those who forget the Name - their lives are cursed, and broken like thin strands of thread.
O Nanak, the dust of the feet of the Holy is more sacred than hundreds of thousands, even millions of cleansing baths at sacred shrines. ||16||
Salok, Fifth Mehl:
Like the beautiful earth, adorned with jewels of grass - such is the mind, within which the Love of the Lord abides.
All one's affairs are easily resolved, O Nanak, when the Guru, the True Guru, is pleased. ||1||
Fifth Mehl:
Roaming and wandering in the ten directions, over water, mountains and forests
- wherever the vulture sees a dead body, he flies down and lands. ||2||
Pauree:
One who longs for all comforts and rewards should practice Truth.
Behold the Supreme Lord God near you, and meditate on the Naam, the Name of the One Lord.
Become the dust of all men's feet, and so merge with the Lord.
Do not cause any being to suffer, and you shall go to your true home with honor.
Nanak speaks of the Purifier of sinners, the Creator, the Primal Being. ||17||
Salok, Dohaa, Fifth Mehl:
I have made the One Lord my Friend; He is All-powerful to do everything.
My soul is a sacrifice to Him; the Lord is the treasure of my mind and body. ||1||
Fifth Mehl:
Take my hand, O my Beloved; I shall never forsake You.
Those who forsake the Lord, are the most evil people; they shall fall into the horrible pit of hell. ||2||
Pauree:
All treasures are in His Home; whatever the Lord does, comes to pass.
The Saints live by chanting and meditating on the Lord, washing off the filth of their sins.
With the Lotus Feet of the Lord dwelling within the heart, all misfortune is taken away.
One who meets the Perfect Guru, shall not have to suffer through birth and death.
Nanak is thirsty for the Blessed Vision of God's Darshan; by His Grace, He has bestowed it. ||18||
Salok, Dakhanaa, Fifth Mehl:
If you can dispel your doubts, even for an instant, and love your only Beloved,
then wherever you go, there you shall find Him. ||1||
Fifth Mehl:
Can they mount horses and handle guns, if all they know is the game of polo?
Can they be swans, and fulfill their conscious desires, if they can only fly like chickens? ||2||
Pauree:
Those who chant the Lord's Name with their tongues and hear it with their ears are saved, O my friend.
Those hands which lovingly write the Praises of the Lord are pure.
It is like performing all sorts of virtuous deeds, and bathing at the sixty-eight sacred shrines of pilgrimage.
They cross over the world-ocean, and conquer the fortress of corruption.
✦ 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.”