Ang-401 — Chapter 68
One who meets the True Guru finds peace.
He enshrines the Name of the Lord in his mind.
O Nanak, when the Lord grants His Grace, He is obtained.
He becomes free of hope and fear, and burns away his ego with the Word of the Shabad. ||2||
Pauree:
Your devotees are pleasing to Your Mind, Lord. They look beautiful at Your door, singing Your Praises.
O Nanak, those who are denied Your Grace, find no shelter at Your Door; they continue wandering.
Some do not understand their origins, and without cause, they display their self-conceit.
I am the Lord's minstrel, of low social status; others call themselves high caste.
I seek those who meditate on You. ||9||
Salok, First Mehl:
False is the king, false are the subjects; false is the whole world.
False is the mansion, false are the skyscrapers; false are those who live in them.
False is gold, and false is silver; false are those who wear them.
False is the body, false are the clothes; false is incomparable beauty.
False is the husband, false is the wife; they mourn and waste away.
The false ones love falsehood, and forget their Creator.
With whom should I become friends, if all the world shall pass away?
False is sweetness, false is honey; through falsehood, boat-loads of men have drowned.
Nanak speaks this prayer: without You, Lord, everything is totally false. ||1||
First Mehl:
One knows the Truth only when the Truth is in his heart.
The filth of falsehood departs, and the body is washed clean.
One knows the Truth only when he bears love to the True Lord.
Hearing the Name, the mind is enraptured; then, he attains the gate of salvation.
One knows the Truth only when he knows the true way of life.
Preparing the field of the body, he plants the Seed of the Creator.
One knows the Truth only when he receives true instruction.
Showing mercy to other beings, he makes donations to charities.
One knows the Truth only when he dwells in the sacred shrine of pilgrimage of his own soul.
He sits and receives instruction from the True Guru, and lives in accordance with His Will.
Truth is the medicine for all; it removes and washes away our sins.
Nanak speaks this prayer to those who have Truth in their laps. ||2||
Pauree:
The gift I seek is the dust of the feet of the Saints; if I were to obtain it, I would apply it to my forehead.
Renounce false greed, and meditate single-mindedly on the unseen Lord.
As are the actions we commit, so are the rewards we receive.
If it is so pre-ordained, then one obtains the dust of the feet of the Saints.
But through small-mindedness, we forfeit the merits of selfless service. ||10||
Salok, First Mehl:
There is a famine of Truth; falsehood prevails, and the blackness of the Dark Age of Kali Yuga has turned men into demons.
Those who planted their seed have departed with honor; now, how can the shattered seed sprout?
If the seed is whole, and it is the proper season, then the seed will sprout.
O Nanak, without treatment, the raw fabric cannot be dyed.
In the Fear of God it is bleached white, if the treatment of modesty is applied to the cloth of the body.
O Nanak, if one is imbued with devotional worship, his reputation is not false. ||1||
First Mehl:
Greed and sin are the king and prime minister; falsehood is the treasurer.
Sexual desire, the chief advisor, is summoned and consulted; they all sit together and contemplate their plans.
✦ 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.”
Divine Compassion & Mercy
Quran 1:1
“In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.”
Psalm 23:1
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”
Luke 6:36
“Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”
Snp 1.8
“As a mother would risk her life to protect her child, her only child, even so should one cultivate a limitless heart with regard to all beings.”
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.”