CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS ISSUE
|| 7 || Go and ask the travellers, how to walk on the Path as His slave. They know the Lord to be their King, and at the Door to His Home, their way is not blocked. O Nanak, the One is pervading everywhere; there is no other at all. || 8 || 6 || SIREE RAAG, FIRST MEHL: Through the Guru, the Pure One is known, and the human body becomes pure as well. The Pure, True Lord abides within the mind; He knows the pain of our hearts. With intuitive ease, a great peace is found, and the arrow of death shall not strike you.
|| 1 || O Siblings of Destiny, filth is washed away by bathing in the Pure Water of the Name. You alone are Perfectly Pure, O True Lord; all other places are filled with filth. || 1 || Pause || The Temple of the Lord is beautiful; it was made by the Creator Lord. The sun and the moon are lamps of incomparably beautiful light. Throughout the three worlds, the Infinite Light is pervading. In the shops of the city of the body, in the fortresses and in the huts, the True Merchandise is traded.
|| 2 || The ointment of spiritual wisdom is the destroyer of fear; through love, the Pure One is seen. The mysteries of the seen and the unseen are all known, if the mind is kept centered and balanced. If one finds such a True Guru, the Lord is met with intuitive ease. || 3 || He draws us to His Touchstone, to test our love and consciousness. The counterfeit have no place there, but the genuine are placed in His Treasury. Let your hopes and anxieties depart; thus pollution is washed away.
|| 4 || Everyone begs for happiness; no one asks for suffering. But in the wake of happiness, there comes great suffering. The self-willed manmukhs do not understand this. Those who see pain and pleasure as one and the same find peace; they are pierced through by the Shabad. || 5 || The Vedas proclaim, and the words of Vyaasa tell us, that the silent sages, the servants of the Lord, and those who practice a life of spiritual discipline are attuned to the Naam, the Treasure of Excellence. Those who are attuned to the True Name win the game of life; I am forever a sacrifice to them.
|| 6 || Those who do not have the Naam in their mouths are filled with pollution; they are filthy throughout the four ages. Without loving devotion to God, their faces are blackened, and their honor is lost. Those who have forgotten the Naam are plundered by evil; they weep and wail in dismay. || 7 || I searched and searched, and found God. In the Fear of God, I have been united in His Union. Through self-realization, people dwell within the home of their inner being; egotism and desire depart. O Nanak, those who are attuned to the Name of the Lord are immaculate and radiant.
|| 8 || 7 || SIREE RAAG, FIRST MEHL: Listen, O deluded and demented mind: hold tight to the Guru’s Feet. Chant and meditate on the Naam, the Name of the Lord; death will be afraid of you, and suffering shall depart. The deserted wife suffers terrible pain. How can her Husband Lord remain with her forever? || 1 || O Siblings of Destiny, I have no other place to go. The Guru has given me the Treasure of the Wealth of the Naam; I am a sacrifice to Him. || 1 || Pause || The Guru’s Teachings bring honor. Blessed is He – may I meet and be with Him! Without Him, I cannot live, even for a moment. Without His Name, I die. I am blind – may I never forget the Naam! Under His Protection, I shall reach my true home.
|| 2 || Those chaylaas, those devotees, whose spiritual teacher is blind, shall not find their place of rest. Without the True Guru, the Name is not obtained. Without the Name, what is the use of it all? People come and go, regretting and repenting, like crows in a deserted house. || 3 || Without the Name, the body suffers in pain; it crumbles like a wall of sand. As long as Truth does not enter into the consciousness, the Mansion of the Lord’s Presence is not found. Attuned to the Shabad, we enter our home, and obtain the Eternal State of Nirvaanaa.
|| 4 || I ask my Guru for His Advice, and I follow the Guru’s Advice. With the Shabads of Praise abiding in the mind, the pain of egotism is burnt away. We are intuitively united with Him, and we meet the Truest of the True. || 5 || Those who are attuned to the Shabad are spotless and pure; they renounce sexual desire, anger, selfishness and conceit. They sing the Praises of the Naam, forever and ever; they keep the Lord enshrined within their hearts. How could we ever forget Him from our minds? He is the Support of all beings.
|| 6 || One who dies in the Shabad is beyond death, and shall never die again. Through the Shabad, we find Him, and embrace love for the Name of the Lord. Without the Shabad, the world is deceived; it dies and is reborn, over and over again. || 7 || All praise themselves, and call themselves the greatest of the great. Without the Guru, one’s self cannot be known. By merely speaking and listening, what is accomplished? O Nanak, one who realizes the Shabad does not act in egotism.
|| 8 || 8 || SIREE RAAG, FIRST MEHL: Without her Husband, the soul-bride’s youth and ornaments are useless and wretched. She does not enjoy the pleasure of His Bed; without her Husband, her ornaments are absurd. The discarded bride suffers terrible pain; her Husband does not come to the bed of her home. || 1 || O mind, meditate on the Lord, and find peace. Without the Guru, love is not found. United with the Shabad, happiness is found. || 1 || Pause || Serving the Guru, she finds peace, and her Husband Lord adorns her with intuitive wisdom. Truly, she enjoys the Bed of her Husband, through her deep love and affection. As Gurmukh, she comes to know Him. Meeting with the Guru, she maintains a virtuous lifestyle.
|| 2 || Through Truth, meet your Husband Lord, O soul-bride. Enchanted by your Husband, enshrine love for Him. Your mind and body shall blossom forth in Truth. The value of this cannot be described. The soul-bride finds her Husband Lord in the home of her own being; she is purified by the True Name. || 3 || If the mind within the mind dies, then the Husband ravishes and enjoys His bride. They are woven into one texture, like pearls on a necklace around the neck. In the Society of the Saints, peace wells up; the Gurmukhs take the Support of the Naam.
|| 4 || In an instant, one is born, and in an instant, one dies. In an instant one comes, and in an instant one goes. One who recognizes the Shabad merges into it, and is not afflicted by death. Our Lord and Master is Unweighable; He cannot be weighed. He cannot be found merely by talking. || 5 || The merchants and the traders have come; their profits are preordained. Those who practice Truth reap the profits, abiding in the Will of God. With the Merchandise of Truth, they meet the Guru, who does not have a trace of greed.
|| 6 || As Gurmukh, they are weighed and measured, in the balance and the scales of Truth. The enticements of hope and desire are quieted by the Guru, whose Word is True. He Himself weighs with the scale; perfect is the weighing of the Perfect One. || 7 || No one is saved by mere talk and speech, nor by reading loads of books. The body does not obtain purity without loving devotion to the Lord. O Nanak, never forget the Naam; the Guru shall unite us with the Creator. || 8 || 9 || SIREE RAAG, FIRST MEHL: Meeting the Perfect True Guru, we find the jewel of meditative reflection. Surrendering our minds to our Guru, we find universal love. We find the wealth of liberation, and our demerits are erased.
|| 1 || O Siblings of Destiny, without the Guru, there is no spiritual wisdom. Go and ask Brahma, Naarad and Vyaas, the writer of the Vedas. || 1 || Pause || Know that from the vibration of the Word, we obtain spiritual wisdom and meditation. Through it, we speak the Unspoken. He is the fruit-bearing Tree, luxuriantly green with abundant shade. The rubies, jewels and emeralds are in the Guru’s Treasury.
|| 2 || From the Guru’s Treasury, we receive the Love of the Immaculate Naam, the Name of the Lord. We gather in the True Merchandise, through the Perfect Grace of the Infinite. The True Guru is the Giver of peace, the Dispeller of pain, the Destroyer of demons. || 3 || The terrifying world-ocean is difficult and dreadful; there is no shore on this side or the one beyond. There is no boat, no raft, no oars and no boatman. The True Guru is the only boat on this terrifying ocean. His Glance of Grace carries us across.
|| 4 || If I forget my Beloved, even for an instant, suffering overtakes me and peace departs. Let that tongue be burnt in flames, which does not chant the Naam with love. When the pitcher of the body bursts, there is terrible pain; those who are caught by the Minister of Death regret and repent.
|| 5 || Crying out, “Mine! Mine!”, they have departed, but their bodies, their wealth, and their wives did not go with them. Without the Name, wealth is useless; deceived by wealth, they have lost their way. So serve the True Lord; become Gurmukh, and speak the Unspoken. || 6 || Coming and going, people wander through reincarnation; they act according to their past actions.
The Sikh Gurus never believed in the exclusivity of their teachings. The Gurus undertook travels to spread their message to peoples of different cultures in their own native languages. The Gurus did not believe in the ideas of any language being ‘sacred’ or ‘special’. It is in this spirit that various Sikh scholars have undertaken efforts to translate Sri Guru Granth Sahib into a number of languages in order to spread the teachings of the Gurus and to bring the Sikh religion to the people of the world as Guru Nanak wished.
TO BE CONTINUED
SRI GURU GRANTH SAHIB
